March 16, 2005
DARN GAME DUCK:
Senate OKs Drilling In Arctic Wildlife Refuge (Richard Simon, March 16, 2005, LA Times)
After decades of debate, supporters of opening an Alaska wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling cleared a major hurdle in Congress today and stood on the threshold of delivering to President Bush one of his sweetest victories.The Senate's Republican majority — by the slimmest of margins — backed Bush's goal of allowing energy exploration in a portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
A bill authorizing the drilling still must come back before the Senate. But the 51 to 49 vote marked a turning point in the long-running struggle between environmentalists who argue that drilling would endanger one of America's most precious wildlife habitats and pro-exploration forces who portray drilling as critical to reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil and stabilizing near-record-high gasoline prices.
If the Left's fetishes keep falling at this rate how do you keep the cult alive? Posted by Orrin Judd at March 16, 2005 6:01 PM
Well, they mostly feed on their own rage. How much mileage do you think they'll out of this? A lot more than the Republicans will. When's the last time before this vote put it back in the press that you even thought about ANWR? I can't even remember. But the left will fetishize it for the next 20 years. They'll be the Desperate Pathetic Martyr Party.
Posted by: Governor Breck at March 16, 2005 6:07 PMThe Guv is right. I've already received my fund raising e-mail on this issue from the NRDC. It's not clear that winning is a good thing for such organizations. Much better to be close but lose.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at March 16, 2005 10:26 PMOne of the problems for the Democrats is you can rage about ANWR, or you can rage about Social Security, or you can rage about judicial appointments, or you can rage about Guantanamo Bay, or WMD, or gay marraige amendments, or Bolton at the U.N., or Wolfowitz at the World Bank, or whatever. But you can't get all your constituent groups to rage all the time about everything -- only a handful of folks in the uber-Dean wing of the party have enough spare time in their lives to stay that angry about everything Bush does.
By throwing so many things at the Democrats at one time, Bush leaves them in the position of being unable to mobilize all that anger in one direction, and also leaves the media unable to focus on one single item as The Battle of the Century on Pennsylvania Avenue. Given that, and the record high oil prices on the day of the vote, it doesn't leave the Democrats with much of an army of committed followers, since their main focus has been on how Bush is going to steal old peoples' Social Security benefits if privitization is passed, while the public is focused on $2.25 a gallon gas prices.
Posted by: John at March 16, 2005 11:29 PM