Bloodless Coup

Sullivan has been on fire. Not sure it's a healthy fire, but he is lit the fuck up.

He is on fire. And because he's read by others who are have big platforms but are less hasty with a judgment, when he's on fire and it's good he can end up driving a hell of a lot of coverage, even as Andrew's fire itself sometimes spills into embarrassing little puddles of hysterics.

And a hell of a lot of coverage is exactly what's needed here.

FWIW, I confess that I adore Andrew's work, and have ever since he was shaking up TNR 15 years ago. I've read his blog since the beginning, and his philosophical evolution in recent years has probably driven more of my own than I generally care to admit.

I think he's drifting towards hysterical. This makes him entertaining, but tends to distract from the (real) points he is arguing.

His coverage of the "did she have a baby or is she covering up her kids baby" is a case in point.

I actually get what he was doing on the baby thing, and while I wouldn't do it myself, I think it's defensible. He was trying to push the rumors out into the larger conversation in order to get them confirmed or debunked ASAP.

There's still an awful lot of weirdness around that birth, btw. Did she rush back to AK mid-labor so that the baby would have "native-born Alaskan" status come the revolution? Is there some weirdness involving her husband's business partner? What are all those GOP ops who scurried up to AK to bribe/threaten/whatever people into silence trying to hide? Did she or did she not make a practice of referring to Obama as "Sambo"? Does she or does she not have an IQ exceeding that of a golden retriever?

The American people need to know!

There was a nice piece by the head of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women talking about all the choices Sarah Palin made that day (which, really, seem perfectly insane to me, having known people with high risk pregnancies and what they have gone through).

So, Governor Palin covered up for her daughter's teenage pregnancy and she also was herself pregnant and threatened that pregnancy? I hate to say it, but I'd agree that these attacks seem even more frenzied and confused than usual. I guess Binky was right about people being threatened by a successful woman.

As to the original post, why do you go after Palin for not confronting tough questions immediately but you give bubble boy Obama a pass for not meeting John McCain in town hall debates to which he has been challenged for the past couple months? Only certain kinds of people people need to be vetted? How about the guy who always votes present? Why has he avoided answering the questions posed by those issues?

If your concern is that we should know who people are, then why did your party select a Vice President who stole a speech from the Labor Party and a President who steals slogans from Sammy Davis Jr ("Yes I can") and Bono ("This is our moment, this is our time")?

Why does Obama get vetted by USA Today's fact checkers for his claim that families have lost hundreds of dollars in wages during Bush's Presidency when salaries have gone up almost ten thousand dollars, and it is only because of increasing inflation caused by tripled oil prices for which eight years of Democrat opposition to drilling is responsible that families are having groceries priced out of their cupboards? Obama is getting his road paved by the media. Your party hates that the Republican ticket has a story, because you need to ignore all of Obama's story to get the "change you can believe in".

Looks like Morris is scared - otherwise I don't really see the point of him throwing up so many softballs.

And I could go through 'em, but I'll simply note that per the norm the Republican present isn't actually bothering to defend the behavior of his 'fraidy cat candidate, he's trying to draw attention away from her and toward random shit that that's been knocked down as an issue or scandal a million times (like the "present" votes) or is simply bizarre to cite (like the Biden speech over 20 freakin' years go - hmmm, you know, I don't think Sarah Palin cited who wrote her speech, the one she delivered, oh, what 4 days ago?).

But if Morris doesn't want to defend the Republican, fine. I'll conclude by noting that if the media paved the way for anyone to be president it's John McCain. See Broder today, or today's post on his Face the Nation appearances. They've been selling him and his story for years and years and years.

I'll simply note that per the norm the Republican present isn't actually bothering to defend the behavior of his 'fraidy cat candidate, he's trying to draw attention away from her and toward random shit

Which is exactly what his party spent their entire convention doing, so no surprise. How's that old political saw go? If you've got nothin', call the other guy names?

Opposition to drilling is the reason for the serious diminution of real wages? Seriously? No -- seriously?

Well jacflash that is how they've managed to win elections for many years now ...

And I'll say I should take back "the Republican present" as there is more than one of those here, and they aren't all behaving in such a cynical and shady way. So that should read instead the McCain-Palin defender present.

"Looks like Morris is scared - otherwise I don't really see the point of him throwing up so many softballs."

Yah, that 13 point swing to McCain in the last couple weeks has me shaking. As to the rest of your dismissal, tell me who's asked Obama about when aborted babies live, that he voted against protecting them. I know, he lied about his vote, but what gives? Who's asked him about voting against an Illinois law to keep prosecutors from jailing people who use guns to defend themselves? I haven't even heard him questioned about that vote, and he's been running for almost 4 years minus his first 143 days in the Senate.

The media blitzed Palin with a dozen attacks in the last week. It's the same as in Enemy of the State when Will Smith becomes a threat, they go after his credibility. Democrats reconstruct black and woman so that people think they can't be one unless they're a Democrat, in their gruesome agenda, the same thing they did to Justice Thomas. The more we defend Palin, the more we let the focus come off Obama, who's running for, you know, actual President, without, you know, anyone knowing his actual story.

The media has set the rules by making him a celebrity rather than a politician, just look at what Oprah said about not having Palin on because she doesn't want to make her show a political forum. It would be nice for the ladies on the View to not have a list of off limits topics, but not with the Obamas around. So we have to do the truth seeking they're supposed to do, because they have their own agenda.

"Opposition to drilling is the reason for the serious diminution of real wages? Seriously? No -- seriously?"

What, you think farmers just started charging a lot more for vegetables and ranchers for milk, cuz? Just cuz? The spike we've seen in oil prices tripling hasn't been approached since the 1970's, during which time inflation skyrocketed. Your man Barack, just like Carter, says we should inflate our tires. Now, that could save us as much as importing 10 million barrels of oil a year at current rates of usage. However, we're importing about 330 million barrels of oil a year, so it's a way of nickel and diming a billion dollar problem.

Your party's hatred of big oil and their willingness to filibuster new energy policy brought us to this point. And what's your party's response? Blame Bush. That's original. It can't be supply and demand, basic economics. Bush is so diabolically evil/so incompetent that he overcomes the laws of economics, right? Who's the sheep now?

Your party's hatred of big oil and their willingness to filibuster new energy policy brought us to this point.

I think when the history of the present oil spike is written., the word "tulips" will feature more prominently in the explanation than the words "bad energy policy" or for that matter, "peak oil".

I am not aware of the Democrats being set on filibustering any new energy policy, but sure, they are willing to filibuster bad ones - why wouldn't they?

And since you see everything in terms of supply and demand, how on Earth is "just drill baby" an answer to higher energy prices? We can drill more sure, but it'll be a drop in the bucket compared to rising demand. The smallish increase in supply won't come anywhere near fitting with the increase in global demand.

As to Oprah, 1) who gives a damn? and 2) she's not having any candidates on - so explain to me how that's being unfair to Palin?

And back to the actual topic at hand - reporters have had the opportunity to ask Obama thousands of questions over the last 2 years. And he's answered questions on a multitude of topics, including his votes to protect women's health. There's simply no comparison here. He's been in front of reporters for months and months and months and months. And before that he was in front of the Chicago press corps (who aren't known for being pushovers) for years. And all that's been reported and made available. The notion that his actual story is somehow hidden is ludicrous.

Palin, however, is largely unknown, and is being shielded from the press, even though she's been the party's pick for national office for 10 days, and even though there's less than 2 months before the people go to the polls. That's not being straightfoward with the people. And it's an entirely unfitting way to run a campaign - particularly when one has the nerve to run such a campaign in the name of 'change' and 'anti-elitism'.

And just in case any of us are keeping score, Morris still hasn't found a good way of defending Palin being hidden away, far from the microphones of the national press corps. He'd rather bash Obama, Oprah, and The View (The View???). This thread is about the anti-democratic move the McCain-Palin campaign is making here. And since today's news shows that Palin apparently doesn't have the foggiest idea of what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are, perhaps it's clear why they are keeping Gov. Palin out of interviews. But that hardly makes it appropriate in a democracy.

"I am not aware of the Democrats being set on filibustering any new energy policy"

Weekly Standard, 12/24/2001:
Bush says the energy measure, and especially its provision for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), is critical to national security. "The less dependent we are on foreign sources of crude oil, the more secure we are at home," the president declared. Yet when at least two Democrats--Senators Daniel Akaka of Hawaii and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana--were prepared to back ANWR drilling, Daschle removed the bill from the energy committee and took personal charge of it. His excuse was that the bill was divisive and would prompt a time-consuming filibuster.

"We can drill more sure, but it'll be a drop in the bucket compared to rising demand."

So what if it's only 86 billion barrels on the continental shelf, as the minerals management service estimate. That's about 400 billion dollars we could keep in America, quite a thump on the trade deficit. And there's 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, to boot. But that's nothing compared with what's in federal lands in the Green River Shale Deposits:

Estimates of the oil resource in place within the Green River Formation range from 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels. Not all resources in place are recoverable. For potentially recoverable oil shale resources, we roughly derive an upper bound of 1.1 trillion barrels of oil and a lower bound of about 500 billion barrels. For policy planning purposes, it is enough to know that any amount in this range is very high. For example, the midpoint in our estimate range, 800 billion barrels, is more than triple the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per day. If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, 800 billion barrels of recoverable resources would last for more than 400 years. (page ix)

If oil shale development is to produce strategically significant volumes of output, however, resources on federal lands must be accessed. Compared with deposits on private lands, the quality of the oil shale deposits on federal lands is generally far superior, especially with regard to thickness and richness. (page 47)
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf

Yikes! Do you think they charged victims of robbery for the fingerprint dust and brushes?

I'm not quite sure why this is now a thread on energy policy, but whatever. I will though raise another question - ummm, why do you think we'd keep that oil in the US instead of exporting it? We export oil now. Why not sell Alaskan oil to Japan? Are the Republicans going to propose a law mandating we sell oil that comes out of our land in the US? B/c otherwise I'm not sure about those claims relating to US national security and the trade deficit.

It would also be nice, while we're on the topic, that neither the GOP nor Morris would use the term "energy policy" to any legislation that does not meaningfully deal with our dependence on oil at the root, by going after demand. More oil is a stopgap, a pricey, fiscally insecure, environmentally unsound stopgap, and anyone with half a brain knows that. The GOP offers oil policies, not energy policies, and the distinction is critical for our economic health, our long-term security, and the health of our planet, plain and simple.

If we'd been drilling more 20 years ago, the modest amount of oil that would have added to today's supply simply would have encouraged people to buy SUV's for a few more years than they did. That's not an "energy policy" by any interesting definition.

Obama sees the big picture. McCain doesn't. Plain and simple.

"More oil is a stopgap"

Love ya, Moon. The Rand corporation says 400 years worth of oil, and you say it's a stopgap. Why is using oil considered a sin among your clique? Why shouldn't people be able to drive an SUV if they want to drive an SUV? I got a newsflash for you. Most people are still buying cars that aren't hybrids, even when gas is $3.50 a gallon. And it is nice, that you admit it's the agenda of your eviromarxist Party to cut supply so much that you're "going after demand."

Personally, I question how "fiscally insecure" a policy would be that allowed US companies to employ Americans who get that oil to market, even if it goes overseas. We could certainly use a trade surplus.

It's your party that says the Middle East controls the price of oil and we should go after the Saudis to bring down prices. So what control do they have over prices that is not related to their supply? I know...BUSH CHENEY HALIBURTON SAUDIS 9/11 CONSPIRACY GLOBAL WARMING!

"Are the Republicans going to propose a law mandating we sell oil that comes out of our land in the US? B/c otherwise I'm not sure about those claims relating to US national security and the trade deficit."

Bro, read up on your international econ again. If we shipped that oil overseas and charged the world market price, it would do just as much to the trade deficit as if we kept it hear. I know Dems love talking about the Saudis' svengali mind control over oil prices, but even China couldn't charge their people less that the world market price for more than a few months without taking a bath on it.

400 years of oil where? Not a single serious oil expert thinks we can materially reduce the fraction of oil we have to get elsewhere by drilling offshore, now or in the 10+ years it'll take to get that oil online. So it's absolutely a national security matter that we continue to demand more from countries which, in turn, can exploit our dependency to make sure we're constantly embarking on diplomatic misadventures overseas in places that need us far less than other places that do -- like Afghanistan, say, or Darfur.

"Why is using oil considered a sin among your clique? Why shouldn't people be able to drive an SUV if they want to drive an SUV?"

So am I correct that you're a flat earther? No global warming? No worry? Arctic passage over North America and Russia opened at the same time for the first time in memory? Arctic cap achieving full melt-through decades ahead of schedule? Stronger storms? I mean, I know, the storms mostly are sent by God to smite the gays and the gay-loving heathens in such godless places as NOLA, but isn't it maybe a little bit like the often non-partisan scientists say? Some causal connection? Just a little one?

Are you actually arguing for our perpetual dependence on foreign oil? Seriously?

I'm not basing the need to come up with alternative sources of energy on the idea that oil's running out, which is not really all that surprising because not once anywhere in the last five or ten years would I have cited that, because I don't believe it's true, not in any imminent sense. Rather, I argue for reducing demand for all of the reasons I actually mentioned, only one of which you engaged, and speciously at that?

If people want to fuel their 10,000-lb. strip mall APC's on Dom Perignon that's their business. I only care, as the good social libertarian I am, when their conduct hurts me. And since I don't take the bible over empirical science, or any other version of blind faith verifiable investigation, I'm quite convinced that our rapacious appetite for oil is hurting us all in the ways I mentioned. And it will continue to do so.

So I repeat: more oil-focused policies are just rearrangements of the deck chairs on the titanic, and are not energy policies in any meaningful sense of the word policy. I'm okay with limited drilling, but I'm not okay with zealots and oil barons calling the shots in Congress. And McCain offers no improvement in that situation, none whatsoever.

By the way, I find it interesting that the right screws this up in the drug war, too: supply side doesn't work. Demand is what matters. For as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. Talk about basic economics.

Oil's a global commodity, kids. It doesn't matter who you sell it to or where. It really doesn't matter where it comes from, either, because the idea that the US wouldn't import or export oil is at least 40 years out of date. Sure, it'd be nice to be a net producer and enjoy the security and profits that accrue to net producers, but unless future supply looks like it will exceed demand (note the wording there -- the spot price of oil is driven by forward contract prices more than anything else) the price at the pump ain't gonna come down much.

Moon, there's actually an awful lot of oil out there that's "off limits" under current US law. An awful lot. If real, credible steps were being taken to start extracting it you can bet the spot price of oil would start to sink. Of course, we can argue all day about whether lower oil prices are a net good thing, but at least it'd be an honest argument, unlike this one.

And hey, it'd be more interesting to everyone else than you yelling "peak oil" and me yelling "tulips!" over and over.

Wait, when did this move from a question of dependence on foreign oil to prices? I didn't say a word about prices and frankly don't care.

Fighting over prices is just a species of what I'm talking about: mischaracterizing an entirely oil-centric set of policies as an "energy" policy. We have better technology, and more diverse needs, then to pretend that it's healthy or necessary to use up every drop of oil before we consider something else in a robust, designed-to-succeed way.

At this point I've kind of lost interest in this thread, but for whatever it's worth 4 thoughts:

First, I am not aware of anyone backing the Drill Baby Drill approach as a new energy who is arguing for it on the basis of it being a way to fix the trade deficit. If people want to start making that argument for it, fine - but that's not the way the debate is framed, all I heard in St. Paul focused on "independence" (from those shifty Middle Easterners you say the Dems hate?).

Secondly, it's hardly only Democrats who bash the Saudis - but it is worthwhile noting that to the degree Democrats attack them it's because of what their oil wealth funds. And of course the Saudis have an effect on the price of oil, but they also keep it flowing, and aside from cranks and tv blowhards I'm not sure of who you have in mind when you say (Democratic) politicians believe Saudis set the price of oil through Svengali-like powers. Heck, of late I imagine a lot of Democrats would say George Bush has set the price of oil more than the Saudis.

Third, Mo you keep throwing around that 400 year line but I'd want several more studies to show that before you add it to your gospel - b/c I've never heard of numbers like that, ever.

Finally, Moon, it's a tiny point, but for the record - oil would keep us out of Darfur, it wouldn't lead us to go there.

Armand, Darfur was meant to be abstractly descriptive of what we'd free ourselves to do if we weren't as hung up on the flow of oil in direct and indirect ways, but your point is taken just the same. :-)

Jac, even though I can't begin to visualize you given the setting, I still have to say I sort of like the idea of you in front of some grocery store somewhere, all wild-eyed and screaming "tulips" over and over, while I stand somewhere nearby countering your shouts with "peak oil." I've certainly endured far less entertaining afternoons in my life.

Maybe we could get Mo to stop by and call us both communists, or maybe shouting "Barack Osama," or whatever wingnuttery to complete the picture. Or maybe he could just rent a Ford Excursion and drive it up and down the parking lot all day as Republican performance art.

(Just for the record, I have been assuming that we all get the tulip reference, but for clarity and all: I think the recent (last 3 yrs, say) spike in oil prices will prove to have been a classic market bubble, and I think it's in the early stages of deflating. I am somewhat comfortable saying that the "correct" price of oil is somewhere between $25 and $65 a barrel and that everything else is feeding frenzy; but honestly, it's damned hard even for experts who spend their days deep in the business to say for sure. I don't purport to refute peak oil as a concept, though I was at Cornell when Thomas Gold was speaking his piece, I just maintain that this spike almost certainly isn't it.)

Peak oil makes sense to me, though I agree that this probably isn't it (I suspect we won't know until we're deep in it).

I agree that we're in a bit of a bubble, but I doubt oil will fall much below $100 a barrel; Chinese and Indian demand and constant political turbulence surrounding the oil producers (Iran, Russia, Iraq) will keep the price higher than it has been in past years. At least, that's my guess.

I'd say you could perhaps add Saudi, Venezuela and definitely Nigeria to that list of major oil producers featuring political turbulence. Given that, as well as demand issues, supply, the number of refineries etc. I'd be surprised to see oil go under $65 a barrel any time soon.

As to we've hit the peak oil moment - I've no idea.

Isn't it time for a comedy break?

David Fry, a wise trader who writes a daily feature at Seeking Alpha, points out that the energy company stocks peaked at levels that suggest roughly $80/bbl. I haven't done any sort of analysis myself but I have no reason to doubt him. That seems like a clue of some kind -- oil's near-term landing place, perhaps.

Crony McCronysons, that's our Sarah! What I find interesting about this article is the way it shows that rather than being a foe of old boy networks, she is the epitome of a patronage system.

Dropping hard. Of course, I'm not sure this is just a popping bubble at the moment.

Hey, she's got foreign relations experience. Looks like with Baltar's people.