Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. President | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: Jim Bispo's weekly column appears in the Beaufort Observer.

    In an abstract world, we tend to believe what we are told. But, is that the end of it?? Or should our "belief" be tempered by what we observe in the real world?? There are those who would suggest that if the "real world" tempered our beliefs, the anointed one would be in big trouble with the electorate. As an aside - So would the Beaufort County EDC.

    Our Prez is touted as being not only smart, but "clever" (And, yes, Virginia, there is a difference). A fine example of "clever" is what we hear from him in his "all of the above" energy program. He repeatedly tells us that he supports all forms of energy (i.e. Coal, oil, nuclear, Hydro electric, wind, solar, and biofuels, even including fuel made from algae.) After all, that's what the powers to be believe that the public wants to hear. Unfortunately, a lot of folks who hear what they want to hear believe him and don't bother to pay much attention to what he actually does. We are left to wonder about "smart" when we see our tax money being heaped on wind and solar energy even before the "all of the above" rhetoric has died down.. A lot of folks are beginning to realize how honestly the anointed one plays his energy game (as in almost not at all). What it looks like is yet another effort to pick winners (green energy) and losers (old energy). They throw money at the green winners with one hand, while grabbing for the old energy oil companies' pocket book with the other hand. (A clear divergence of rhetoric and performance.) Of course he is meeting a lot or resistance from practically everyone (except the wind and solar entrepreneurs - or would that be faux entrepreneurs?? - whose very survival seems to be almost totally dependent on grant money). But why should that bother someone whose judgement is better than all the rest of us combined?? Short answer: It apparently doesn't.

    Surely he is telling us the truth when he tells us that the U.S. has only 2% of the globe's oil reserves yet we consume something on the order of 20% of the global production. Of course he is. Would our President ever try to mislead the unwashed masses?? Of course not.

    According to the US Energy Information Administration we consume 18,810,010 barrels of oil per day. According to Wikipedia we produce on the order of 7,500,000 barrels per day. At those rates of production and consumption we are told that we have about 10 years of reserves left.

    There is a way that the prez can win this entire argument by "giving in" to the "drill here, drill now" crowd. Or, at least looking like he is "giving in" to them - and I'm surprised his spear carriers haven't figured this out yet. (But when you stop to consider that they seem to name streets after those spear carriers - i.e. one way - maybe it shouldn't be a surprise.) All we have to do to end all the bickering over oil is to invite the "drill baby drill folks" to start drilling. Get the permits moving and get them moving in a hurry. It should not be overly difficult to triple our oil output which should use up all our reserves in a little over three years, and then there will be no more American oil to argue over. Our only alternative will be so called "green" energy which surely we all will eagerly embrace - the price be damned. The argument ends. The Prez wins... We all live happily ever after.

    But wait. What if the anointed one is using bogus numbers just to make his argument seem plausible?? It wouldn't be the first time he has tried to mislead us. Remember when he had to reinvent the bankruptcy process to take care of GM because it they had used the "old" bankruptcy process and procedures (that had worked just fine for lots of years, thank you), the big campaign contributors and Unions might have suffered?? Additionally, the anointed one and his spear carriers suggested that if they hadn't reinvented the bankruptcy process the company would have gone completely out of business. Well, maybe not. How about the Chrysler bankruptcy that Lee Iacocca steered Chrysler through a number of years ago?? How about some of the airlines that went "belly up" and went through bankruptcy the "old" way and are still around one way or the other (e.g. Continental Airlines; United Airlines; Frontier). And how about American Airlines which is currently in the middle of the "old" bankruptcy procedures and is still operating??

    Naw... The anointed one would not knowingly mislead the American public. Of course, I suppose if he really wanted to show us how wedded he is to the figures he is quoting, he could move to implement the suggestion outlined above and drill baby, drill - for three or four years until our 10 year reserve of oil runs out. (Machiavelli lives!!)

    Surely the professionals of the American Petroleum Institute, who talk in terms of a reserve of some ten times as large as the Prez claims, cannot be trusted to give us an honest assessment. After all, they are a part of the "fat cat" oil establishment. But we can trust the staff and politicos associated with this administration. Yeah... About as much as we can trust the British climate scientists who started this whole global warming myth with their dysfunctional models, bogus climate data, and what must have been humongous egos..

    D'ya think??