"It would be better if energy prices went up."
So amazingly said Politico's Evan Thomas on PBS's Inside Washington Friday (video follows with transcript and commentary):
GORDON PETERSON, HOST: Let's go back to Mitt Romney's energy plan to see how that’ll play.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP):
MITT ROMNEY: If I’m the President of the United States in a few months here, I will set a national goal of America and North America North American energy independence by 2020. North American energy independence by 2020. That means we produce all the energy we use in North America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PETERSON: Okay, Mitt Romney says his energy plan will create more than three million jobs, will open up more areas for drilling off Virginia and North Carolina – these two states critical to the national election. He’s a numbers guy, Evan. This is his ballpark here.
EVAN THOMAS, POLITICO: But he is also, as usual, being phony. He also says it will bring down gas prices, energy prices. That’s not true. We’re on a global market. No matter how much we drill, it’s not going to have a big impact on energy prices. So that part is not true. Actually, it would be better if energy prices went up because we need to develop alternative sources…
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: Which he’s not really very interested in.
THOMAS: No, he’s not, but he’s, you know, they’re doing the "Drill, baby, drill" thing. They’re trying to make a complicated issue emotional, and demagoguing it for the campaign.
As NewsBusters readers are aware, Evan Thomas is not the run of the mill liberal media member virtually always dogmatically speaking Democrat talking points.
In fact, he quite often is spot on in his analysis.
But this comment Friday was something one would expect from Totenberg or someone on MSNBC, and Thomas should be embarrassed.
Fortunately, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer was on the set to add some much-needed sanity to the discussion:
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: But that is not true of natural gas. Natural gas is not a world price, it’s a local price, because it’s hard to ship. The price of natural gas here is about $3. In China it’s about $20.
Indeed. Maybe more importantly, natural gas IS an alternative source of energy from oil. The more of it we produce, the less oil we'll likely need in years to come.
This is why so many people believe natural gas IS America's future if only we had an administration willing to embrace it.
Sadly, the folks in the media - apparently including Thomas! - see windmills and solar panels as the solution to all that ails us despite such technology still being far too expensive to be practical.
