Lying Pussies

In this George Stephanopoulos interview with House Dictatrix Crazy Nancy Pelosi, see if you can discern which one is Abbott and which one is Costello:

No matter how many times Steph asked her the question, "Why won't you allow an up-or-down vote on lifting the congressional oil-drilling ban?", no matter how he phrased it or from which angle he approached it, the House Hag ducked, dodged, evaded, and BS'd her way out of the trap.

Let's review the transcript, shall we?

What we have presented are options that would really make a difference at the pump. Free our oil, Mr. President. We're sitting on 700 million barrels of oil. That would have an immediate effect in ten days.

She's referring to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which is only supposed to be tapped in case of national emergencies, a category of phenomena in which maintaining Democrat control of Congress most assuredly does not belong - but which the Iranians closing the Strait of Hormuz most assuredly would.

Even if draining the SPR just to bail out her caucus out of its self-inflicted PR bind wouldn't be the height of irresponsibility, it would be nothing more than a short term gimmick that would NOT address the underlying problem: a lack of domestic supply that has been created by Democrat energy and environmental policies.

What our colleagues are talking about is something that won't have an effect for ten years and it will be two cents at the time. If they want to present something as part of an energy package, we're talking about something. But to single-shoot on something that won't work, and mislead the American people as to thinking it's going to reduce the price at the pump -- I'm just not going to be a party to it.

Has she been in for a fill-up lately?  Of course not; she doesn't DO her own driving, she's got a chauffer-driving government limo, no doubt.  So Nance probably isn't aware that pump prices have dropped approximately a quarter a gallon in the three weeks since President Bush rescinded the Executive Order against offshore drilling.  That's called the market - which does tend to have a forward-looking outlook - responding to changes in market conditions indicating that future supplies of domestic petroleum might just increase.  Last time I checked my calendar, three weeks is quite a bit less than ten years.

So what Crazy Nancy is saying is that she (1) is either a liar or dumber than a box of hair and (2) won't be party to any legislation that might enable the market to reduce oil and gas prices by enabling the market to boost the supply of oil and gas.  If the government can't do it - and she'll NEVER admit that the government can't do everything and then some - then "no a-gas-a-fo-you!"

[Republicans]'ll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote and they may get a vote. But I'm trying to - we have serious policy issues in our country.

Republicans will get a vote on drilling when hell freezes over, even if they present me with a discharge petition with 434 signatures on it.

Steph, to his credit, did try doggedly to pin her down on what is a very simple, straightforward question:

Except that it's not just Republicans calling for this. Members of your own caucus say we must have a vote. Congressman Jason Altmire - let me show our viewers right now - is saying there's going to be a vote. Here he says exactly, "there's going to be a vote. September 30th will not come and go without a vote on opening the outer continental shelf. The message has been delivered. The issue can't be ignored any longer." He says he speaks for a lot of Democrats. He's talked to the leadership, and a vote must happen.

This reflects the growing public demand to allow renewed domestic energy exploration.  Indeed, it is precisely because gas prices stopped INCREASING one and two cents at a time and started increasing two or three times that rate that this issue exploded and threw the Democrats on the defensive.  One would expect House Dems, all of whom have to face these angry voters, to want to see some sort of effort made to appease them.

One would also think their "leadership" would be drawing a similar conclusion, especially if Pelosi doesn't want to go back to being a minority leader.  Not, though, judging by her ramblingly evasive answer:

Well, maybe it will as it's part of a larger energy package. But let's step back, call a halt, and put this in perspective. What we have now is a failed energy policy by the Bush-Cheney, two oilmen in the White House - $4-a-gallon gasoline at the pump. And what they're saying is, let's have more of the same. Let's have more of big oil making record profits, historic profits - you see the quarterly reports that just came out -- who want to be subsidized -- they don't really want to compete -- and let them use those subsidies to drill in protected areas.

Instead, we're saying, free the oil. Use it, don't lose it. There are 68 million acres in lower forty-eight and ten or twenty million more acres in Alaska where they're permitted, where they can drill anytime. This is a diversionary tactic from a failed energy policy.

1) The Republican energy package IS comprehensive.  It's got all manner of useless lib dry well ideas (conservation, "alternative" sources) that won't garner the nation a single additional erg of energy for a lot longer than ten years but will waste a bleepload of taxpayer dollars in the meantime.  All they're demanding is that freeing up domestic exploration (and nuclear power) be part of it.

2) What's wrong with "Big Oil" profits?  Which are NOT "record" when looked at in the proper perspective of percentage of revenues, where they are pedestrian at best compared to other industries.  Besides, it's not as though the feds don't have an ante in that supposed bonanza via the gas tax - why else does David Oberstar want to raise it a dime a gallon?

Nor is it true that the oil industry wants subsidies.  Rather, they are simply charging the level of prices they have to in order to continue to earn a profit for their shareholders - which include a large cross-section of the electorate via 401(k)s and IRAs - given the existing market conditions of escalating foreign oil demand and stagnant domestic supply.  That's why we have to import over 60% of our daily usage, which, given the political orientation of some of those overseas suppliers (Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia), isn't likely to introduce any downward pricing trends anytime soon.  Moreover, does it not stand to reason that unless Pelosi doesn't want to see prices driven even higher by "Big Oil" being required to continue to search in areas they've already thoroughly explored, they be allowed to explore where they haven't drilled yet - and where, as with ANWR, they already KNOW there's billions of barrels of new oil just waiting to be tapped?

The reference to "Bush-Cheney" and these two "oil men's" "failed policies" is just Bushophobic red meat to her constituency (and, she probably assumed, Stephanopoulos).  It's their policies that have NOT been implimented and which SHE is obstructing.  Meanwhile, there's the little matter of her promise upon grabbing the Speaker's gavel a year and a half ago to do something to "bring down gas prices" that were two-thirds of what they have risen to under her radical, incompetent, empty-headed stewardship.

It is, in other words, HER polices that have "failed," and it is the Republicans that are trying heroically to introduce a little "hope and change."

Here is perhaps the most telling portion of the exchange:

STEPHANOPOULOS: So what exactly are you trying to say? You say you might allow a vote as part of a comprehensive package, but you won't allow a straight up-or-down vote on drilling oil?

PELOSI: Well, I'm not going to - we have put on the floor free our oil; strong bipartisan support for that. Use it don't lose it; strong bipartisan support for that. End undue speculation; strong bipartisan support for that. We've talked about these things. Invest in renewable energy resources so that we can increase the supply of energy for our country; strong bipartisan support for that. Over and over again -

STEPHANOPOULOS: And yet, you've brought those measures to the floor in a way under the suspension of the rules so that it couldn't be amended with a drilling proposal.

PELOSI: Well, we built consensus and have a strong bipartisan - this is what's going to make a difference to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, to stop our dependence on fossil fuels in our own country, to increase the supply of energy into - and immediately, and immediately to reduce the price at the pump to protect the consumer.

So this is a policy matter. This is very serious policy matter.

It's not to use a tactic of - one tactic in order to undermine a comprehensive energy package, to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which is a national security issue, to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in our country. Now, we should be talking about natural gas. That's cheaper, better for the environment.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But why not allow votes on all that? When you came in as speaker, you promised in your commitment book, A New Direction for America - let me show our viewers - you said that bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate consisting of a full amendment process that grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives. If they want to offer a drilling proposal, why can't they have a vote?

REP. PELOSI: They'll have to use their imagination as to how they can get a vote and they may get a vote. [emphases added]

Steph almost got her.  She almost came out and said, "I'm not going to allow a vote on any measure that includes drilling."  Then it was right back to the dishonest hyperpartisan filibuster about "bipartisan consensus," pie-in-the-sky boasting about her long-discredited energy policies, and mischaracterizing the GOP proposal.  By the end of it she fell back on the usual greenstremist demagoguery - "global warming," "saving the planet," and "Republicans want dirty water and dirty air."

That's the sort of whimsical stupidity that would be seen from Donk pols a lot more often on Enemy Media "news" programming if the Enemy Media were genuinely objective.  Then maybe we wouldn't need effortless parodies like this one:

Even while we're enjoying our embittered guffawing at how a creature as dense, vile, and loathsome as Nancy Pelosi could ever be entrusted with the Speaker's gavel, and thence the power to slowly bulldoze America backwards to the halcyon economy of the nineteenth century - sort of a legislative EMP burst - there is one overlooked phrase that, according to Politico, reveals a method behind this outwardly appearing madness: "....they may get a vote":

[W]hat looks like intraparty tension on the surface is part of an intentional strategy in which Pelosi takes the heat on energy policy, while behind the scenes she’s encouraging vulnerable Democrats to express their independence if it helps them politically, according to Democratic aides on and off Capitol Hill.

Sounds a lot like their subterfuge in 2006, when most of the thirty-five freshman Donks elected that cycle pretended to be "centrists" and "moderates" and, inevitably, assimilated into the neoBolshevik collective once in office.  Admittedly, a bigger task for a party when trying to climb the majority mountain than it is when they're already there and only have to play defense.

And Crazy Nancy thinks she knows why:

Democratic insiders said that Pelosi and other party leaders were “not rattled” by the GOP floor rebellion, and at this point, it’s not clear if the Democrats will even pay a price on energy. State-level polling conducted by Democrats suggests that voters still view President Bush and the GOP as the incumbent power in Washington, and Democratic strategists believe any anti-incumbent wave would hurt Republicans more than Democrats.

Color me a skeptic on that polling.  True, the vast majority of people who vote aren't overly informed, and don't follow politics on an ongoing basis, but they know which party is the incumbent power on Capitol Hill.  The fact that the "coattail effect" hasn't manifested itself since Ronald Reagan swept in three dozen new GOP representatives and twelve GOP senators twenty-eight years ago alone seems testament to that.  AND they know which party is obstructing domestic energy exploration - thus preserving high energy prices - and which one is trying to "tear down that wall."

Just to leave nothing to chance, House Minority Leader John Boehner called Crazy Nancy's bluff:

“My message to Democratic lawmakers is this: if you’re really for increased American energy production, then prove it by putting it in writing. Sign the discharge petitions House Republicans are circulating that will force votes on energy legislation Speaker Pelosi refuses to bring to the floor. And sign onto the American Energy Act, our ‘all of the above’ plan to increase conservation, innovation, and American energy production, instead of doing the Speaker’s bidding by voting against bringing it to a vote. If you aren’t willing to put it in writing, you’re fooling no one. You’re siding with the Speaker of the Drill-Nothing Congress and radical special interests that favor higher gas prices, at the expense of energy-strapped American families.”

“This cynical strategy is disgustingly dishonest. Without any real solutions to help Americans who are struggling with record-high gas prices, it appears the Democratic leadership has hit on a new plan: deceive. Deceive the press, deceive its members, and deceive the American people. Democratic members have a ‘pass’ from their leaders to talk about drilling at home, while the liberal Democratic leadership – which is beholden to special interests that want higher gas prices – plays ‘rope-a-dope’ back in Washington, ensuring there is no vote to help the American people before November. It’s cynical, dishonest, and wrong – and it won’t work.”

Actually, since when is mass deception a "new" Democrat tactic?  That's been their stock in trade for at least the past sixteen years (certainly longer than that, but it's difficult to see back past the B.C. - before Clinton - years).  Aside from that gaffe, Boehner has really thrown down the gauntlet.

In all candor, even if Pelosi continues "suppressing all attempts and letting the GOP bludgeon the Democrats with this issue all the way to November," it's unlikely to overturn control of the House, given the momentum tide Dems are riding.  But it could deprive them of the gains they were expecting, not unlike how Republicans running away from impeaching Bill Clinton cost them the chance to win crushing majorities in 1998.

Either way, and as belated as it is, it's gratifying to see the erstwhile Party of the Right finally show a pulse after such a long coma, even if the revival is taking place in the hearse.  As long as they can keep the Dems from nailing shut the coffin lid, 2010 and the reversal of the historical "big mo" will await.

Assuming there's much of a country left to save.