Ask, And Ye Shall Hear Crickets

Demand in front of the American electorate for five weeks, and ye shall receive:

Evidently Crazy Nancy and the Donk Politburo dismissed the House GOP Oil Party as empty grandstanding, or they wouldn't have recessed Congress for over a month and left the minority party an open-ended, unopposed playing field to stoke the already simmering public anger against the majority's callous obstruction of opening up domestic energy exploration to help lower energy prices rather than continue to suck the asses of their environutter special interest cronies.

Just yesterday came an indication that perhaps bird-flipping malign neglect wasn't such a hot idea after all:

In the new [USA Today/Gallup] survey, more voters call themselves Republicans. Now 48% say they’re Democrats or lean to the Democratic Party; 47% say they’re Republicans or lean to the GOP.

Not since February 2005, right after Bush’s second inauguration, have Republicans been within a single point of Democrats in party identification.

What’s more, voters by 48%-45% support the Democratic candidate in their congressional district, the party’s narrowest advantage this year. [emphases added]

Think the energy issue, Maverick's "coming to Jesus" migration on drilling this summer, and his choice of Governor Sarah Palin, who signature issue is domestic energy development and is currently the most popular Republican on the planet, the combination of which threatens to take what was expected to be the biggest Democrat sweep in forty-four years and transform it into the biggest electoral debacle evah, might have had a wee bit to do with this?:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said Monday morning that the newest Democratic energy bill will be brought to the floor under normal rules and will be subject to a vote on a Republican alternative that is likely to call for even more drilling than Democrats are prepared to swallow.

Hoyer, holding his weekly session with reporters, would not discuss details of the new Democratic energy bill — which was first outlined by caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (D-CT) over the weekend. But Hoyer did outline the process for bringing the bill to the floor, and said it will be brought up under regular order.

“[Republicans] will have the opportunity to offer their alternative, yes,” Hoyer said in response to a question about how the energy bill will be introduced. “We understand that their motion to recommit will be their Republican alternative.”

The move is a dramatic departure from Democrats’ pre-August recess strategy, in which they brought up each of their energy bills under suspension of the rules and, in doing so, avoided having any votes on Republican measures calling for offshore drilling. But by embracing this strategy, Democrats also failed to get the two-thirds majority necessary to pass the majority of their energy bills.

Well, now.  THAT's more like it.

So, problem solved?  The reason why Crazy Nancy hypocrited herself on abusing her power as Speaker was precisely because she knew the GOP energy bill had the votes to pass, including, necessarily, Democrat votes from Donks in vulnerable swing districts captured in 2006.  So why is she relenting now, after the PR damage to her caucus had already been done?

Two reasons: (1) She doesn't want to go back to being House Minority Leader again; and (2) she knows that her counterparts in the Senate, where the "gang of ten" has now engorged to the "gang of twenty-two," can bottle it up and/or water it down long enough to get past the election, after which it can be quietly killed.

Why did this machievellian alternative not occur to Granny McBotoxImplants sooner?  Why, because she's so smart, of course....

UPDATE: Here's a pleasant scenario from the gang of twenty-two link:

These Republicans seem to think that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is going to offer them a free and open debate when this bill reaches the floor. But nothing in Reid’s record indicates that he will give Republicans a chance to offer amendments that reduce spending or open additional offshore areas to drilling. In the worst-case scenario, Reid and Pelosi ram the gang’s bill through Congress and force President Bush to veto it, giving Democrats a fresh talking point heading into November. Get ready to hear, “We supported drilling, but Bush vetoed our bipartisan energy legislation to protect Big Oil”.

They don't call our guys the "Stupid Party" for nothing.  If anybody is capable of screwing the pooch on an absolutely gimme wedge issue going down the 2008 campaign's home stretch, it's the party that wrote the book on seizing defeat from the jaws of victory.