Crazy Nancy's Energy Four-Corners

Ed Morrissey is calling this a "concession" of defeat; I think it's just a stall:

Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in an months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-WI, told reporters Tuesday that a provision continuing the moratorium will be dropped this year from a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running after Congress recesses for the election.

Republicans have made lifting the ban a key campaign issue after gasoline prices spiked this summer and public opinion turned in favor of more drilling. President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling in July.

“If true, this capitulation by Democrats following months of Republican pressure is a big victory for Americans struggling with record gasoline prices,” said House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Is it?  Remember the gist of Crazy Nancy's anti-drilling "drilling" bill, denying coastal states the right to share in the estimated $2.6 trillion of tax revenue that would flow from opening the full continental shelves to energy exploration.  That bill was DOA in the Senate, but the end of the drilling moratorium brings pretty much the same set of conditions: drilling is fair game, but states can't cash in on it without federal legislation.  Additionally, it doesn't take a crystal ball to look into the near future and see an avalanche of greenstremist lawsuits blocking every single last Big Oil attempt at opening up any additional fields or building so much as a single new drilling platform.

And let us not forget that, despite the 110th Congress being an almost total bust for the Dems - no defeat in Iraq, no new taxes, no double-impeachment of Bush and Cheney, no President Pelosi - they are nevertheless going to increase their majorities significantly.  Add to that dismal prospect President Hussein - who currently enjoys a slight Electoral College lead and very modest but undeniable momentum at the moment - and that drilling moratorium will be slapped back in place faster than a cheesy fry going down Bill Clinton's gullet come January, locking away our energy resources and keeping us economic hostages to our enemies in Tehran and Caracas and Moscow for another generation - if we survive that long.

Even if John McCain somehow pulls this election out, the Left's litigation hordes will still keep a lid on in OCS, and there'll be little or nothing he can do about it.

The Speakerette may be crazy, but she knows that folding on one bad hand does not the game concedeth.  Particularly when she's the dealer of marked cards in a stacked deck.