1115.org

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Yesterday, John McCain invoked his glorious military heritage, decked himself out in the mantle of John F. Kennedy, and issued a stirring call for what he calls “strategic independence” from foreign oil by 2025:

In recent days I have set before the American people an energy plan, the Lexington Project, named for the town where Americans asserted their independence once before. And let it begin today with this commitment: In a world of hostile and unstable suppliers of oil, this nation will achieve strategic independence by 2025.
[…]
Some will say this goal is unattainable within that relatively short span of years — it’s too hard and we need more time. Let me remind them that in the space of half that time — about eight years — this nation conceived and carried out a plan to take three Americans to the Moon and bring them safely home. In less than a third of that time, the gathered energies of my father’s generation built the industrial might that overcame Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. That is the scale of our achievement when we set our minds to a task. That is what this country can do when we see a danger, and declare a purpose, and find the will to act.

Good stuff, huh?

Liberal bloggers initially had loads of fun at McCain’s expense, because no one had any idea what “strategic independence” actually means, and somehow McCain (and his campaign) hadn’t thought to explain. It sounded very much like it was a phrase strategically coined to make us feel good that a great and glorious pledge had been made while actually leaving us all perfectly clueless exactly what had been pledged. But then the McCain campaign ruined everybody’s fun by offering up a definition of “strategic independence”:

Strategic independence is when oil is no longer the primary fuel for our transportation and the oil cartel no longer has the ability to undermine our economy or the paychecks of American workers.

That’s clear enough for a politician’s promise, don’t you think? Something else will supplant oil as “the primary fuel for our transportation”. Oil prices will no longer be able to undermine our economy. (I can see a “depends on the definition of undermine” looming in our collective future, but you’ve got to allow the guy some wriggle room. On the other hand, this is the guy who doesn’t, at the time of going to press, seem to have any idea what “economy” means, either. And I don’t think I’m prepared to concede a “depends on the definition of economy“.)

The funny thing is that, in his speech, McCain also peeled back the fine froth of his rhetoric just enough to allow us a glimpse of what he sees as the path to this promised land:

As president, I will turn all the apparatus of government in the direction of energy independence for our country — authorizing new production, building nuclear plants, perfecting clean coal, improving our electricity grid, and supporting all the new technologies that one day will put the age of fossil fuels behind us.

So that’s the recipe, guys. Coastal drilling, drilling in the ANWR. (That’s going to help supplant oil as “the primary fuel for our transportation”?) Lots of lovely new nuclear plants (I’m betting the first one doesn’t go up in Sedona, AZ). And perfecting “clean coal”. (What the hell does that even mean? How do you perfect a PR oxymoron? Especially when it’s already a perfect PR oxymoron.) Supporting all kinds of new technologies. (Too bad that McCain’s record shows him blocking tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency, and calling for oil drilling subsidies.)

And in case you were getting your hopes up, McCain was quick to point out that even in the long-term there wouldn’t be any instant relief:

Nor can I promise you that the long-term success of this Project will bring instant relief.

The guy’s a walking, talking oxymoron!

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Having had our fun, we are constrained to point out that McCain had promised at the beginning of May to bring us an energy policy that would “eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East”:

My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will — that will then prevent us — that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.

(Somehow he didn’t sound the “no more wars for oil” note again yesterday.)

Kevin Drum’s comment at the time was:

… there isn’t an energy expert in the world — not one — who thinks we can “eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East.”

It’s a child’s fantasy, but McCain spouts this stuff as if solving our problems really were just that easy. It reminds me of his solution to the fighting in Iraq: “One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, ‘Stop the bullshit.’”

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McCain also promised:

And never again will we leave our vital interests at the mercy of any foreign power.

If the poor sod had the slightest comprehension of economics, he would realize that it’s not just oil that leaves our vital interests at the mercy of foreign powers. There’s also the crushing sovereign debt (resulting from those record budget deficits) which has China holding our economic balls in a vice. One of these days, they’re going to start squeezing, and lean over, and whisper in our sovereign ear: “Now listen very carefully, here’s what you’re going to do…”.

Of course, it won’t be till then that the McCains of the world jump up and decide that we simply have to do something about China’s huge holdings of our debt.