House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reversed her own position on offshore oil drilling this weekend in a move similar to Barack Obama’s last week, dropping her stern opposition in favor of something like “Let’s wait and see.” 

During the Democrats weekly radio address, amongst a barrage of her usual anti-drilling statements, Pelosi revealed that she would no longer stand in the way of a discussion of offshore drilling in the House of Representatives, something she had previously dismissed outright.

Just a month ago, Pelosi said that McCain and Bush’s calls for offshore drilling were “a hoax,” and “a decoy to punt your attention away from the fact that their policies have produced $4-a-gallon gasoline.”

The environmental community, at the time, seemed very happy to have such lion-hearted, upstanding representatives in Washington, politicians who would stand up for what was right for our environmental health, repudiate short-sighted or dangerous proposals, and call pandering and vote-bribing what it is.

Now, a month later, both Obama and Pelosi have bowed their stances under the pressures of politics and the importance of this election year. Both have seen the concern about gas prices in the electorate and both saw the Republicans scoring points on “The Democrats Don’t Care about Gas People!” line. 

So did they offer a bold new energy solution to make worries about gas prices a thing of the past? 

No.

Both of them tiptoed along the same pandering line that Bush and McCain plowed right through. Instead of buying favors for their gas-industry friends, the Democrats are trying to buy favor.

The Democrats can only win this election by being liberals; Al Gore and John Kerry know that you don’t win anything by playing Republican-Lite.

 

Source: NYTimes

photo by barbwire55

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