I’m crediting Krugman for that title. His column today has given any number of great post titles, such as The Party of Stupid, The (GOP) Politics of Stupidity to name a couple of others. But, let’s not get stuck on the great ideas for post-titles. The actual column has a lot to say on the current energy crisis discussion:
So the G.O.P. has found its issue for the 2008 election. For the next three months the party plans to keep chanting: “Drill here! Drill now! Drill here! Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad!” O.K., I added that last part.
And for the meat of the matter:
In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.
What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, “want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs.”
Or how about the fact that this oil most likely is not going to stay in the US — but be sold on the global market?
Time to put on your “thinking caps” folks!
