This is what leadership looks like

[RunInRed 16,996]

While I fundamentally disagree that drilling is the answer to ultimately solving our energy problems, I applaude Obama here for his willingness to work in a bipartisan-fashion and move us towards an energy policy we can live with. This my friends is leadership and how we will finally tackle big problems under the Obama administration.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that's what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

"If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage _ I don't want to be so rigid that we can't get something done."

Asked about Obama's comment, McCain said, "We need oil drilling and we need it now offshore. He has consistently opposed it. He has opposed nuclear power. He has opposed reprocessing. He has opposed storage." The GOP candidate said Obama doesn't have a plan equal to the nation's energy challenges.

In Congress, both parties have fought bitterly over energy policy for weeks, with Republicans pressing for more domestic oil drilling and Democrats railing about oil company profits. Despite hundreds of hours of House and Senate floor debate, lawmakers will leave Washington for their five-week summer hiatus this week with an empty tank.

"The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling," Obama said in the Post interview. "And so we don't want gridlock. We want to get something done."

Later, Obama issued a written statement warmly welcoming a proposal sent to Senate leaders Friday by 10 senators _ five from each party. Their proposal seeks to break the impasse over offshore oil development and is expected to be examined more closely in September after Congress returns from its summer recess.

The so-called Gang of 10 plan would lift drilling bans in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but retain an environmental buffer zone extending 50 miles off Florida's beaches and in the South Atlantic off Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, but only if a state agrees to the oil and gas development along its coast. The states would share in revenues from oil and gas development.

Drilling bans along the Pacific coast and the Northeast would remain in place under this compromise.

The plan also includes energy initiatives Obama has endorsed. "It would repeal tax breaks for oil companies so that we can invest billions in fuel-efficient cars, help our automakers re-tool, and make a genuine commitment to renewable sources of energy like wind power, solar power, and the next generation of clean, affordable biofuels," Obama noted.

"Like all compromises, it also includes steps that I haven't always supported," Obama conceded. "I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact."

Nevertheless, Obama said the plan, put forward by mostly moderates and conservatives led by Sens. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., and Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., "represents a good faith effort at a new bipartisan beginning."

Earlier in the day, Obama pushed for a windfall profits tax to fund $1,000 emergency rebate checks for consumers besieged by high energy costs, a counter to McCain's call for more offshore drilling.

The pitch for putting some of the economic burden of $4-a-gallon gasoline on the oil industry served a dual purpose for Obama: It allowed him to talk up an economic issue, seen by many as a strength for Democrats and a weakness for Republicans, and at the same time respond to criticism from McCain that Obama's opposition to offshore drilling leads to higher prices at the pump.

In linking McCain to the unpopular President Bush, Obama struck a theme from Ronald Reagan's successful 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter by asking a town-hall audience in St. Petersburg: "Do you think you are better off than you were four years ago or eight years ago? If you aren't better off, can you afford another four years?"

Obama primed the crowd by noting new government figures showing 51,000 jobs lost last month and citing 460,000 jobs lost over the last seven months. He tied other bad economic news from the Bush administration to McCain and offered his energy program as one route to relief.

"This rebate will be enough to offset the increased cost of gas for a working family over the next four months," Obama said during a two-day campaign swing in Florida. "It will be enough to cover the entire increase in your heating bills. Or you could use the rebate for any of your other bills, or even to pay down your own debt."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/01/o...g_n_116450.html

[Tigermike 3,427]

As He's Consistently Said... He's Been Saying this for Years.

He's Said From the Very Beginning that the Energy Policy He Formerly Espoused was Wrong.

This, really, was about as predictable as the sun rising in the east this morning:

updated 2:42 p.m. EDT, Sat August 2, 2008

Obama says offshore drilling stance nothing new

From Ed Hornick and Alexander Marquardt

CNN

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama responded Saturday to criticism that he has changed his position on opposing offshore oil drilling.

Obama said Friday that he would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.

"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices," Obama told The Palm Beach Post early into a two-day swing through Florida.

But on Saturday morning, Obama said this "wasn't really a new position."

"I made a general point about the fact that we need to provide the American people some relief and that there has been constructive conversations between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate on this issue," he said during a press conference in Cape Canaveral.

"What I will not do, and this has always been my position, is to support a plan that suggests this drilling is the answer to our energy problems," Obama added.

"If we've got a plan on the table that I think meets the goals that America has to set and there are some things in there that I don't like, then obviously that's something that I would consider because that's the nature of how we govern in a democracy."

The senator from Illinois has spoken out against offshore drilling since Sen. John McCain in June proposed striking down the federal moratorium banning offshore oil and gas drilling to help alleviate high gas prices.

"When I'm president, I intend to keep in place the moratorium here in Florida and around the country that prevents oil companies from drilling off Florida's coasts," Obama told reporters in Jacksonville in late June. "That's how we can protect our coastline and still make the investments that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and bring down gas prices for good." (What he is saying is if he is elected get ready for $10 per gallon gas and get ready for the price increases at the grocery, the clothing stores, everywhere. Just get ready for the giant auger cause he plans on reaming your collectives asses. And don't buy into what he says will only be increases on the rich.)

Even as recently as Thursday, Obama refused to cede any ground, calling McCain's proposal "a strategy designed to get politicians through an election."

"It's not going to provide short-term relief or medium-term relief or in fact long-term relief. It won't drop prices in this administration or in the next administration or in the administration after that," Obama said while campaigning in Iowa. (With all the money he has raked in over the past three years of campaigning for president, it would be a good idea if he took a correspondence course in Economics 101)

But Friday, Obama admitted that something is better than nothing and praised a bipartisan energy plan from the Senate that combines alternative energy innovation, financial, nuclear energy and drilling proposals.

He said he is still skeptical about drilling's potential to lower gas prices or reduce dependence on foreign oil.

"The Republicans and the oil companies have been really beating the drums on drilling," Obama said in the interview with the Florida paper, "and so we don't want gridlock. We want to get something done."

The McCain camp was quick to applaud Obama's softening on the issue.

"It's clear that members of both parties are following John McCain's leadership toward an 'all of the above' approach on energy that includes nuclear, alternative energy, and offshore drilling," said a McCain spokesman.

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll out Thursday, just more than half of those polled said the ban on additional offshore drilling is a major cause of high fuel prices. The same number cite the Bush administration and the war in Iraq as causes.

The poll indicates that about two-thirds of Americans think U.S. oil companies and foreign countries that produce oil are major causes of higher gas prices.

One group gets relatively little blame. Thirty-one percent of those polled said the Democrats in Congress are a major cause of gas prices.

The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Most Republicans want to lift a 1981 ban on offshore drilling, saying it will increase domestic oil supplies. But the Democratic leadership wants to keep the ban in place, arguing that more offshore drilling will have little effect on prices and could threaten the environment.

Republicans also want to legalize drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and allow the processing of oil shale on public lands in the West -- two actions Democrats also oppose.

Oil shale is sedimentary rock with oil in it that has historically been considered too expensive to process. Several environmental risks are associated with extracting oil shale.

advertisement

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said the president was perpetrating a "hoax" by pushing for more offshore oil drilling.

"The president has failed in his economic policy, and now he wants to say, 'but for drilling in protected areas offshore, our economy would be thriving and the price of gas would be lower,' " Pelosi said. "That hoax is unworthy of the serious debate we must have to relieve the pain of consumers at the pump and to promote energy independence."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/02/cam...wrap/index.html

[au2004ece 30]

Obama is a fraud. He supports whatever he thinks is most popular and then claims to have always supported it, when he has in fact, argued against it in the past.

[RunInRed 16,996]

Obama is a fraud. He supports whatever he thinks is most popular and then claims to have always supported it, when he has in fact, argued against it in the past.

I think you need to reread what he said:

"Like all compromises, it also includes steps that I haven't always supported," Obama conceded. "I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact."

[HuntsvilleTiger 0]

It's true that great leadership can change their position on something after circumstances change or more information is gathered. However, neither of that has happened. Circumstances haven't changed. We've needed to alleviate the dependance on foreign oil for a long time. The price of gas has actually dropped prior to Obama's change of mind so that wasn't the circumstance. And what, if any, new information has been gathered? Only the public opinion polls.

That sir, is not leadership. It's pandering to the voters.

[RunInRed 16,996]

It's called a bipartisan compromise - some thing we have not seen from your party in a long long time. This breath of fresh air is beyond refreshing.

Now if you really want to talk about changing opinions on public opinions polls, we can discuss McCain's stances on taxes, immigration, drilling, social security, and on and on...

www.flipfloptracker.blogspot.com

[HuntsvilleTiger 0]

It's called a bipartisan compromise - some thing we have not seen from your party in a long long time. This breath of fresh air is beyond refreshing.

Now if you really want to talk about changing opinions on public opinions polls, we can discuss McCain's stances on taxes, immigration, drilling, social security, and on and on...

www.flipfloptracker.blogspot.com

Can you point to the last time "your" party made a bipartisan compromise???

And although I am holding my nose and supporting McCain against the socialist leaning Obama, I wouldn't strictly label myself a Republican, so it's not "my party" per se...

[au2004ece 30]

Obama is a fraud. He supports whatever he thinks is most popular and then claims to have always supported it, when he has in fact, argued against it in the past.

I think you need to reread what he said:

"Like all compromises, it also includes steps that I haven't always supported," Obama conceded. "I remain skeptical that new offshore drilling will bring down gas prices in the short-term or significantly reduce our oil dependence in the long-term, though I do welcome the establishment of a process that will allow us to make future drilling decisions based on science and fact."

Obama says it in that manner to obscure the reason for his change.

Again, it is good that he has changed positions again, because he has come to the correct position.

Shouldn't the leftists be angry at Obama for this change?

What else is he going to sell out for in order to become president? Or was he just lying about all these issues that he has changed his mind on just to win the democratic primary?

[CCTAU 3,369]

The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind. The answer is blowing in the wind.....

[Auburn85 434]

so McCain-Feingold has no bearing?

McCain alienating his party when working with Ted Kennedy on immigration?

Gang of 14? At least Obama was there in spirit.

And Obama can talk all he wants about bi-partisanship. He can't run away from being ranked as the most Liberal Senator not too long ago.

What year was McCain named most Conservative Senator? Bush is even a far cry from a Conservative. But I guess, since McCain has been seen with Bush, that's all that needs to be said.

Or what about Republicans and the Medicare Perscription Drug Act?

Bush and Republicans dramatically increased the size of government. Democrats should be happy to see that. Bush, along with several Republicans, joined the party of bigger government and entitlement programs.

Chuck Hagel still has a "R" beside his name, too bad some Democrats don't offer that same deal with Lieberman.

I've already stated I didn't vote for McCain i n the primary and more than likely not voting for him in the general. I'm now all but wanting Obama to win. But I have another question, when 2012 comes are Democrats still going to use Bush as an excuse?

[RunInRed 16,996]

so McCain-Feingold has no bearing?

McCain alienating his party when working with Ted Kennedy on immigration?

Gang of 14? At least Obama was there in spirit.

And Obama can talk all he wants about bi-partisanship. He can't run away from being ranked as the most Liberal Senator not too long ago.

What year was McCain named most Conservative Senator? Bush is even a far cry from a Conservative. But I guess, since McCain has been seen with Bush, that's all that needs to be said.

Or what about Republicans and the Medicare Perscription Drug Act?

Bush and Republicans dramatically increased the size of government. Democrats should be happy to see that. Bush, along with several Republicans, joined the party of bigger government and entitlement programs.

Chuck Hagel still has a "R" beside his name, too bad some Democrats don't offer that same deal with Lieberman.

I've already stated I didn't vote for McCain i n the primary and more than likely not voting for him in the general. I'm now all but wanting Obama to win. But I have another question, when 2012 comes are Democrats still going to use Bush as an excuse?

It's funny you should mention McCain's bipartisan work - especially, since he has now flipped on every single one of those positions. Further proof that McCain 2008 is a completely different person than the candidate who ran against W in 2000.

As for Obama's bipartisan work, it has been well document in numerous previous threads:

See: Obama work with McCain, Hagel (again ironic that you would mention him), Lugar, Coburn, Bond, etc.

[Tigermike 3,427]

As for Obama's bipartisan work, it has been well document in numerous previous threads:

Only in your mind, only in your wildiest dreams.

[SouthLink02 8]

Obama is a fraud. He supports whatever he thinks is most popular and then claims to have always supported it, when he has in fact, argued against it in the past.

All politicians are frauds

[arnaldoabru 11]

Obama is a fraud. He supports whatever he thinks is most popular and then claims to have always supported it, when he has in fact, argued against it in the past.

Wait a minute, I thought McSame was against any new off shore drilling. Now he is for it? I get it, he was for it before he was against it.