Kristol tries to set up false spin on Iraq

Obama has been talking about having a withdrawl from Iraq over 16 months

A gradual, responsible withdrawl he calls it, however Kristol is trying to setup grounds for a spin to coincide with his return from Iraq

Huffpo has more:

KRISTOL: The voters tend not to punish political leaders for adjusting their views especially if they come towards the voters. The next big flip for Obama, this will make Brit even more astonished, will be on Iraq. He’s going to go to Iraq, meet with General Petraeus, decide the “Surge” is working and walk back from his immediate, unconditional withdrawal. Suddenly it’s going to be, well…we’re going to be very careful…gradual, honorable withdrawal – Obama said the other day, an honorable conclusion to the Iraq war.

Very interesting of Kristol to try and pass this off, however its been the Obama line for a while

McCain says Obama’s words can’t be trusted

Considering all the times he has flip flopped I find it hard to see how he can disparage Obama

Carpetbagger has a list of McCain flips

HuffPo has an article on some of his lies

We have more of his lies here, here,  here, here, here

And more, so McCain should be careful before he attacks another person’s integrity

Seymour Hersh claims US launching Covert Ops in Iran

Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program.

HuffPo has video of an interview With Hersh

US ambassador Ryan Crocker denies Covert Ops

Congress delays inadequate bill

While Mortgage crisis snowballs

When Congress started fashioning a sweeping rescue package for struggling homeowners earlier this year, 2.6 million loans were in trouble. But the problem has grown considerably in just six months and is continuing to worsen.

More than three million borrowers are in distress, and analysts are forecasting a couple of million more will fall behind on their payments in the coming year as home prices fall further and the economy weakens.

Those stark numbers not only illustrate the challenges for the lawmakers trying to provide some relief to their constituents but also hint at what the next administration will be facing after the election. While the proposed program would help some homeowners, analysts say it would touch only a small fraction of those in trouble — the Congressional Budget Office estimates it would be used by 400,000 borrowers — and would do little to bolster the housing market.

“It’s not enough, even in the best of circumstances,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. The number of people who will be helped “is going to be overwhelmed by the three million that are headed toward default.”

Last week, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to advance the bill, and the House passed a version last month. Because of procedural delays in ironing out differences between the two houses, the Senate is not expected to pass the bill until after the Fourth of July recess.

The bill would let lenders and borrowers refinance troubled mortgages into more affordable 30-year fixed-rate loans that are backed by the government. Democratic leaders say Congress could send something to the president next month.

McCains’ home in California about to enter into tax default.

And we should trust this man with our economy, why?

When you’re poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you’re rich, it’s hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It’s a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. […]

County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: “The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due.”

McCain says it doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know what the price of gas is

And he calls Obama out of touch

In a telephone interview with the Orange County Register earlier this week, John McCain acknowledged he was unaware of the price of gas. The OC Register’s Martin Wicksol reports:

WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.

I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, many as short a time ago as yesterday. I communicate with the people and they communicate with me very effectively.

McCain’s cluelessness about gas prices is compounded by the fact that he is clueless about what to do about it. He is promoting a gas tax holiday for drivers because he claims to understand “Americans are hurting.” It will provide “a little psychological boost,” McCain said of his plan.

In reality, his gas tax holiday would be worth a mere 60 cents a day for Americans and would be a boon for oil companies and foreign oil-producing nations. It would drive up the deficit. Moreover, the proposal would rob $1.4 billion from “public transportation and severely restrict the industry’s ability to add and improve transit services for a growing number of Americans.”

It seems that gas prices is just one more issue that “is not something” McCain has “understood as well he should.”

McCain Tries to steal credit; then avoids vote to eat chili

Not only does he try to steal credit for Webb’s GI bill, a bill he opposed.

But when the vote comes up, he’s not even there to vote on it, where was he:

That’s right he was eating chili in ohio(only other senator to miss was Ted Kennedy, who is gone for medical reasons)

In fact he hasn’t voted on a bill since April

McCain is disgusting

Consumers are not happy

The consumer mood is poor in 2008

- The percentage of people who expect their income to drop in the next six months” also hit record highs to 15.9 percent, 5.1 percent higher than during the economic hardships of 1973.

- “Those claiming business conditions are ‘bad’ increased to 32.5 percent from 29.7 percent“

- “Those saying jobs are ‘hard to get’ increased to 30.5 percent from 28.3 percent in May“

- “Those expecting business conditions to worsen over the next six months rose to 33.9 percent from 32.9 percent”

- “The percent of consumers expecting fewer jobs in the months ahead increased to 35.5 percent from 32.3 percent“

McCain’s $45 Billion tax breaks to top Corporations

Big Corporations stand to make a lot under McCain:

A new report from the Center For American Progress Action Fund finds that a key piece of John McCain’s tax plan — cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% — would cut taxes by almost $45 billion every year for America’s 200 largest corporations as identified by Fortune Magazine.

Arnold targets offshore drilling

But can he terminate this pander:

In a speech on climate change in Florida, the California governor diverged from his prepared remarks to blast supporters of offshore drilling.

America is so addicted to oil that it will take years to ween ourselves from it. To look for new ways to feed our addiction is not the answer. Anyone who tells you this would bring down gas prices anytime soon is blowing smoke.

John McCain, who Schwarzenegger endorsed in January, recently became one of those people. He explained his sudden support for offshore drilling by arguing that it would be “”very helpful in the short term resolving our energy crisis.” The Huffington Post couldn’t find an expert who thought McCain’s plan would actually provide short-term relif.

Conservatives want everyone to have nukes

Also on the issue of working across the isle Carpetbagger has another instance of GOP-foot-in-th-mouth syndrome:

You’d think McCain campaign surrogates would know better.

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas learned a lesson today that other John McCain surrogates might be wise to learn: Before you say Barack Obama never worked across the aisle, make sure he never worked with, for example, you.

On a McCain campaign conference call with reporters this morning, Brownback — who was briefly one of McCain’s rivals for the Republican nomination — said Obama was all talk and no action when it came to working across the aisle.

“John McCain’s a maverick. He’s fought for a bipartisan fashion,” Brownback said. “I think that the biggest thing I’ve seen from Barack Obama is a willingness, aggressiveness, to talk bipartisan and yet to vote the hard left — most liberal member of the United States Senate.”

That’s pretty much the standard talking point in GOP circles these days — Obama sounds like he’ll bring people , and he talks about working with Republicans, but it’s just a facade.

The problem, in this case, is that Obama and Brownback teamed up on multiple occasions. If anyone should know that Obama’s willingness to reach across the aisle is more than just “talk,” it’s Brownback.

So Obama’s rapid-response team quickly fired off an e-mail listing the projects on which he worked with Brownback. They include a Brownback bill that authorized sanctions against people who were involved with the genocide in Darfur, a version of which became law in 2006. They also teamed up on an Obama bill that required the administration to provide humanitarian relief and other aid to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Brownback also co-sponsored Obama’s bill to impose sanctions against Iran. And the two were involved — though not the principal players — in the 2006 immigration overhaul effort that McCain worked on with Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts.

“Their work stands as an important reminder that even in this era of increased partisan rancor, Democrats and Republicans can work together to tackle the critical challenges that all Americans agree must be met,” the Obama campaign e-mail said.

Did Brownback not realize how easy it would be to check this sort of thing?

Government forecaster says offshore drilling won’t lower gas prices

I don’t even see the psychological benefit

Reuters reports that in a briefing today, Guy Caruso of the Energy Information Administration — the government’s “top energy forecaster” — said expanding offshore oil drilling would do little to lower gas prices:

“It would be a relatively small effect, because it would take such a long time to bring those supplies on,” Caruso said during a briefing at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the EIA’s new long-term international energy forecast. “It doesn’t affect prices that much.”

In 2007, the EIA also concluded that offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact” on oil prices. The remarks today come after both Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and President Bush endorsed plans to expand offshore oil drilling in response to record gas prices.

McCain says only WW3 would result in a draft

Except he already believes we are in WW3:

During a “tele-townhall meeting” last evening, John McCain was asked by a mother of two sons if he believes the nation will one day re-institute the military draft. It would take an “all-out World War III” to make that happen, McCain responded.

Indeed, if that’s true, then a military draft may indeed be a possibility. McCain himself has suggested we are in a “World War III” confrontation with Iran.

In July 2006, McCain appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live, where he was asked to respond to this quote from Newt Gingrich: “We’re in the early stages of what I would describe as the Third World War and, frankly, our bureaucracies aren’t responding fast enough. … You’d have to say to yourself this is in fact World War III. ” Here’s how McCain reacted to that quote:

KING: Senator McCain, do you agree?

MCCAIN: I do to some extent. I think it’s important to recognize that we have terrorist organizations which — who are dangerous by themselves, are now being supported by radical Islamic governments, i.e., the Iranians, which makes them incredibly more dangerous because they are trained, equipped, motivated and assisted in every way by the Iranians.

Last October, President Bush himself warned of a coming “World War III” with Iran. “I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War III,” said the President. “It seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon

Rep Burgess lies about McCain and Obama’s health plans

not true says the Wonk Room:

CLAIM: McCain’s plan “comes a lot closer to the ideal goal of offering every American the opportunity for insurance.”

FACT: McCain’s plan would not come close to insuring the 47 million Americans without health care.

- By equalizing the tax treatment of employer and individual plans, McCain would entice healthy workers to buy cheaper but less substantive insurance in the individual market place. The exodus of healthier workers from employer-pools would increase the average health care costs for sicker employees who can’t find coverage in the individual market, forcing them to opt out entirely.

- As the Center for American Progress Action Fund pointed out, the entire employer health insurance system could unravel, “ending this as an option for Americans who prefer it.”

CLAIM: Under McCain’s plan the uninsured would be able to purchase insurance because “the employer can provide…additional compensation to in a employee over and above the $5,000 tax credit that that employee could use to purchase insurance for themselves or family.”

FACT: Average premiums are higher than McCain’s credit of $2,000 for an individual and $5,000 for a family.

- According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “the average annual premium costs for a family with employer-sponsored insurance was $12,106 in 2007, and it was $4,479 for a single person.”

- Annual premiums for nongroup coverage vary widely, currently ranging from $1,163 to $5,090 for singles, and $2,325 to $9,201 for family coverage.

FACT: McCain’s plan is a tax increase.

- While McCain’s credit may assist a limited number of families who currently lack any kind of health insurance, workers who receive a higher tax subsidy through employer-based plans would experience a tax increase.

FACT: McCain’s credit will diminish in proportion to growing health premiums.

- The individual consumer would have to stretch McCain’s tax credit to cover the ever-growing costs of medical premiums. This is because McCain indexes the growth of his initial $5,000 offering to inflation, not premiums. And, since premiums grow at a higher rate than inflation, McCain’s proposal imposes $3.6 trillion tax increase on the consumer.

FACT: McCain’s plan gives employers an incentive to drop coverage once the tax credit is available.

- By equalizing the tax treatment of employer and individual plans, it makes individual plans more attractive than they are today. Business owners would no longer need to cover their workers to get tax benefits for their own coverage.

During the interview, Burgess admitted, “I don’t know a great deal about Sen. Obama’s plans.” Unfortunately, it seems like Burgess doesn’t understand McCain’s plan either.

National Poll: Obama has 12 point lead

New LA times poll, in line with Newsweek poll late last weekshowing a 15 point lead

GAO report paints pessimistic view of Iraq

From The Washington Post:

The administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the “surge” of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said yesterday.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the “New Way Forward” strategy remain unmet.

The report, after a bleak GAO assessment last summer, cited little improvement in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to act independently of the U.S. military, and noted that key legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament had not been implemented while other crucial laws had not been passed. The report also judged that key Iraqi ministries spent less of their allocated budgets last year than in previous years, and said that oil and electricity production had repeatedly not met U.S. targets.

Bush’s strategy of January 2007, the GAO said, “defined the original goals and objectives that the Administration believed were achievable by the end of this phase in July 2008.” Not meeting many of them changed circumstances on the ground and the pending withdrawal of the last of the additional U.S. forces mean that strategy is now outdated, the report said. The GAO recommends that the State and Defense departments work together to fashion a new approach.

From the Huffington Post:

The most startling illustration of the hindered strategy seems likely to be the current status of the Iraqi Security Forces — the policing and military presence that is supposed to allow U.S. troops to come home. According to the GAO, the percentage of Iraqi units “capable of performing operations without U.S. assistance” remains roughly 10 percent. Thus, while the number of forces has risen by more than 150,000, the actual assistance that American troops are receiving is far more negligible. Adding salt to the wound, the GAO notes: “Since 2003, the United States has provided more than $20 billion to develop Iraqi security forces.”
But when it comes to Iraqi security, the devil is in the details. Indeed, even stating that there has been an increase in Iraqi forces is a bit misleading. As the GAO notes, the methodology for counting these force levels contains inherent flaws, including tallying those who are dead or deserted.

The number of trained Iraqi security forces may overstate the number of troops present for duty. According to DOD, the number of trained troops includes personnel who are deceased or absent without leave. For example, DOD reported that approximately 24,500 soldiers were dropped from the Iraqi Army rolls in 2007 because they deserted or were absent without leave. However, these troops are still counted in trained numbers. An April 2008 Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction report confirmed that a substantial number of Iraqi personnel still on the payroll were not present for duty for various reasons, such as being on leave, absent without leave, injured, or killed.

From the LA Times:

Two new government reports, one by the Pentagon, pointed Monday to encouraging security improvements in Iraq, but were decidedly pessimistic about prospects for political and economic progress and warned that costly military gains would remain fragile.

One report, by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that many political reconciliation efforts have stalled, that Iraq’s security forces remain largely unable to operate without U.S. assistance and that its central government has not fulfilled commitments to spend its own money on reconstruction.

As a result, a new U.S. strategy for attaining military, political and economic goals is needed, the GAO said.

The Pentagon, while not agreeing on the need for a new strategy, acknowledged problems throughout Iraq. The quarterly report on progress also cited continued dissatisfaction among Iraqis over essential services such as water, electricity, sanitation and healthcare and said government officials in Baghdad “lack the ability” to advance needed rebuilding projects.

Both reports cite dramatic improvements in security, and officials say the number of attacks is continuing to plummet. On Monday, Lt. Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the No. 2 U.S. military commander in Iraq, said that the number of attacks had fallen from an average of 1,200 per week in June 2007 to 200 per week this June.

“Iraq is a much better place than it was a year ago across the board, politically, economically and from a security standpoint,” Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday. “But we are not at the sustainable point yet, we are not at the irreversible point yet.”

The GAO credited many security improvements to the U.S.-led initiative that pays former insurgents to guard their neighborhoods, a project the report called a “key component” of Washington’s strategy.

But ominously, both the Pentagon and GAO reports note potential problems with the so-called Sons of Iraq program. Most Sunni Arab groups whose members have been brought into the program have yet to reconcile their differences with the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, the GAO report notes. The Pentagon said the program faces the challenge of combating infiltration by extremist groups and concluded that the Iraqi government cannot currently manage the effort.

Because of deep sectarian divisions, the Pentagon report predicted that future political and diplomatic progress in Iraq “may be slow and uneven.” The report also noted that new laws must be implemented fairly to avoid heightening sectarian tensions.

Pentagon officials argued that security improvements will provide more opportunities for Iraqi officials to compromise on key pieces of reconciliation legislation.

“Iraqis are taking advantage of some of those opportunities, but there is more they have to do,” said a senior Defense official, who spoke at a background briefing but was prohibited by the Defense Department from using his name.

The Pentagon report also repeated a frequent observation that Iran may pose the “greatest long-term threat” to Iraq. Despite an overall decline in attacks on U.S. forces, the report notes, the number of armor-piercing bombs increased in late March and hit an all-time high in April. Many of the weapons are made in Iran, U.S. officials say.

More broadly, the GAO said the Bush administration has not planned adequately for the drawdown of troops sent for last year’s buildup. Most of the additional forces are expected to leave Iraq by the end of July.

McCain pushes Psychology over actual answers

As we know, offshore drilling isn’t going to get any results at the pump, but McCain says that’s not a problem because it’ll help psychologically:

I don’t see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist — and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts — is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial.

Carpetbagger has more:

Delivering a speech on energy policy in California this morning, John McCain emphasized the importance of pragmatism.

“Energy efficiency is no longer just a moral luxury or a personal virtue. A smarter use of energy is part of a critical national effort to regain control of our own energy future. And in this effort, practical ideas are worth a lot more than uplifting lectures.”

McCain didn’t mention Barack Obama, but the reference to “uplifting lectures” was probably a shot in the Democrat’s direction. Fine.

McCain also, by the way, spoke about energy policy during a town-hall event in California yesterday, and struck a different note.

Yesterday, McCain admitted that his offshore drilling proposal would probably have mostly “psychological” benefits, NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy reports. At a town hall in Fresno that primarily focused on energy issues, McCain was asked a question about the price of gas and the viability of various short-term solutions. […]

“In the short term I’d like to give you a little relief for the summer on the gas tax,” McCain began, referring to his controversial proposal to temporarily suspend the federal tax on gasoline. But then he made a surprisingly candid admission: “I don’t see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist — and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts — is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial.”

Got that? McCain believes we have to focus on “practical ideas,” which in this case aren’t actually practical, and won’t have a pragmatic effect. At the same time, we have to worry less about practicality, and consider what might have a “psychological impact” on the country, whether the policy makes sense or not.

What?

I’m starting to get the sense that McCain didn’t exactly think his energy policy through before he started talking about it. Indeed, this isn’t the first time he’s had back-to-back contradictions on the subject.

Here’s McCain on April 15:

“I propose that the federal government suspend all taxes on gasoline now paid by the American people — from Memorial Day to Labor Day of this year. The effect will be an immediate economic stimulus…. [B]ecause the cost of gas affects the price of food, packaging, and just about everything else, these immediate steps will help to spread relief across the American economy.”

And here’s McCain 48 hours later:

“I think psychologically, a lot of our problems today are psychological — confidence, trust, uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. [A gas-tax holiday] might give ‘em a little psychological boost. Let’s have some straight talk: it’s not a huge amount of money…. A little psychological boost. That’s what I think [a gas-tax holiday] would help.”

So, a seasonal tax cut that will serve as “an immediate economic stimulus,” and at the same time, the same policy won’t produce any real savings, but it might alleviate “psychological” problems.

The incoherence here is breathtaking. McCain believes drilling is part of a short-term solution. He also believes drilling offers no real short-term solutions. McCain believes a gas-tax holiday will produce big savings for consumers. And no savings for consumers. McCain believes we need pragmatic policies that work. He also believes we need psychic policies that make people happy whether they work or not.

I have no idea what John McCain is talking about. The real question, though, is whether John McCain knows what John McCain is talking about.

Big Oil leaving food on their plate while asking for dessert

Lawmakers lay into big oil for leaving million of acres untouched while at the same time asking to drill in Alaska and off the coasts.

Oil companies and many lawmakers are pressing to open up more U.S. areas for drilling. But the industry is drilling on just a fraction of areas it already has access to.

Of the 90 million offshore acres the industry has leases to, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico, it is estimated that upwards of 70 million are not producing oil, according to both Democrats and oil-industry sources.

One Democrat staffer said if all these existing areas were being drilled, U.S. oil production could be boosted by nearly 5 million barrels a day, although the oil industry said that number is far too high and one government agency said it was impossible to estimate production.

Recent proposals to open up offshore coastal areas near Florida and California, as well as Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, might yield 2 million additional barrels, according to estimates from various government sources that also stressed the difficulty in making forecasts. The United States currently produces 8 million barrels of oil and other petroleum liquids a day and consumes about 21 million.

Oil companies “should finish what’s on their plate before they go back in line,” said Oppenheimer analyst Fadel Gheit.

Some Democrats also charge that oil companies are deliberately not drilling on the land to limit supply and drive up oil prices.

“Big Oil is more interested in pumping up prices and pumping up their own profits rather than pumping more oil,” said Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass), who has co-sponsored a bill to charge oil companies a fee for land they hold that’s not producing oil. “We should not even begin discussing handing over more public land to the oil companies until they first use [the land] they already hold.”

But the oil industry says it pays millions of dollars for these leases, and that it would not make sense to purposely leave the areas untapped.

Rather, years of exploration is required before drilling can even begin. In some cases, no oil is found on leases they hold. In others, drilling the wells and building the pipelines takes years. It is especially hard now that a worldwide boom in oil exploration has pushed up the prices – and timelines – for skilled workers and specialized equipment.

“No one is sitting on leases these days,” said Rayola Dougher, senior economic advisor for the American Petroleum Institute. “Those making those assertions don’t understand the bidding and leasing process.”

Gheit agrees that it’s unlikely that hoarding is going on.
With prices at $135 dollars a barrel, everyone is trying to pump as much as they can, he said. But fearing oil prices will eventually fall, the industry is leery about making too many investments in the fields it has – many of which are in deepwater areas that can be pricey to develop.

Instead, they’re holding out, hoping the government will open areas closer to shore that would be cheaper to work on.

The presumptive Republican candidate John McCain has come out in favor of lifting bans on oil-drilling off most of the East and West coasts of the United States. Added supply, the thinking goes, would ultimately bring down the price of oil. The bans were enacted in the 1970s following several coastal oil spills.

Critics say lifting the bans would do little to ease the nation’s energy crisis in part because it would take years to produce meaningful amounts of oil, noting how much is currently going untapped.

Gheit hasn’t seen the legislation proposed by Markey and others, but he thinks the government should revise the leasing process to encourage more drilling on existing areas before it puts more acres up for bid.

Sounds like Big Oil wants what essentially amounts to a big government bailout, by having easy to develop areas opened up, even if it won’t see any results fore decades, rather than trying to develop the harder  lands they have.  Like a kid who doesn’t want to eat his veggies, but wants a big scoop of icecream instead.

Holtz-Eakin Lies on CNN

Total lie, as CNN showed a few weeks back

Administration admits that drilling is not a short term answer to gas prices

As I said drilling is just a McCain/Bush Pander

McCain agreed that attacks would help his campaign

Found an economist who supports McCain’s offshore drilling?

Impossible says HuffPo

Last week, Sen. John McCain reversed his longstanding opposition to offshore drilling. The Arizona Senator and his campaign surrogates framed the move as a much-needed effort to combat energy costs in the wake of record high gas prices – political action to Sen. Barack Obama’s inaction.

“Floridians are suffering, and when you’re paying over $4 a gallon for gas, you have to wonder whether there might be additional resources that we might be able to utilize to bring that price down,” said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who also changed his stance on the policy.

But is there one credible economist or energy analyst who actually believes that offshore drilling could have a short-term impact on the market dynamics?

The Huffington Post took on the task of finding an expert who thought that Americans would, within the next decade, receive relief at the pump from McCain’s plan. Querying the entire scope of the ideological spectrum — and putting aside the debate over whether or not offshore drilling was sensible policy — the consensus seemed to be that if the presumptive GOP nominee was persuading voters that he could help decrease their gas bill, he was either living in a political fantasy or being disingenuous.

We started out with the conservative crowd, the one seemingly most predisposed to the idea of drilling.

“There is no question it would take quiet a bit of time for this to come to the market,” said Max Schultz, an energy analyst for the Manhattan Institute. “But it was the same argument that was used any time over the past ten years, that it would take too much time for this stuff to have an affect… Having a couple million extra barrels on the world market would eventually help ease those markets.”

Other expressed similar, qualified skepticism about the short-term benefits of McCain’s plan.

“Would starting to drill now do anything for consumers in the near future?” asked Ken Green, an energy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute. “The answer to this one, again in my opinion, is probably not, since it’ll take so long for new oil or gas to come to market. There is some small chance it would have immediate benefits if the current price of oil is fueled by spectators convinced that supply will continue to remain stagnant in the face of growth. They could take a commitment to drill as evidence that supply constraints will loosen, resulting in lower prices (or slower increases), making oil futures a weaker investment that would trade for less.”

Added Jerry Taylor, a fellow at the Cato Institute, “I think it would have an effect, just not a major effect. The odds are you couldn’t get any significant amounts of crude from coastal areas within the next decade. Offshore rigs, if you want to go get one, tough luck. They are all leased out. Even if the infrastructure is there, it would be hard, but the infrastructure isn’t there… But markets react to future developments and even if the crude is not flowing, the project itself could have an impact on markets.”

But the assertion that offshore drilling could have an impact on oil prices by placating oil speculators is itself a contested proposition. And some analysts insist that it is wishful thinking that the market would suddenly perk up because of the prospect of more supply.

“There are a number of problems with that argument,” said Rob Shapiro, formerly undersecretary of commerce under President Clinton, and co-founder and chairman of Sonecon, LLC. “First of all I don’t think anyone thinks that within the time period of futures trading, that there would be enough additional supply to effect global future prices. Second of all, the market will look at this not only in terms of, ‘there is more supply,’ but also, ‘there is more supply at substantial greater costs to recover than current supply, and with substantial new liabilities’ — the communities that are going to sue them when they destroy their beaches.”

Indeed, as Taylor pointed out and as a number of independent studies have emphasized, there are a host of loopholes, costs, delays and uncertainties that make offshore drilling far from a sure oil market boom. There is a five-year waiting period just to lease land for drilling, and even more time on top of that to get a contract for the oil rigs. The American Petroleum Institute recently acknowledged that there is a dearth of equipment to drill on the land and coasts that are already accessible. And depending on the size of the station being built, and the possibility that oil may not be found immediately, it could be upwards of ten years before crude is even brought to the surface.

The Energy Information Administration estimated that oil from these sites would hit the market around 2017 and peak around 2027. Rushing the process would likely only result in less supply. “The faster we try to drain the less efficient the drainage,” said Dr. Ralph Byrns, Professor of Economics at UNC-Chapel Hill. “If we drain it dry and still get 14 billion barrels of oil [the President has suggested 18 billion], that itself would still take 20 years.”

Which brings us to the other side of the ideological spectrum, where analysts and experts not only see offshore drilling as a relatively fruitless enterprise, but precisely the wrong type of solution to achieve energy independence.

“Oil companies make more money on oil they own as long as the price stays high,” said Marc Cooper, Director of Research for the Consumer Federation of America. “So the primary effect of drilling offshore will be increasing the profit of the oil companies. Today when they make a deal to drill in Saudi Arabia, they deal with the local government who takes all the rent. When they own their own oil, when they go to the outer-continental shelf, they don’t have to pay OPEC.”

A Democratic analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, had a more nefarious explanation for McCain and President Bush’s support for the offshore exploration: “If you wanted to go into Iraq, you saw 9/11 as a way to do that. And if you want to do offshore drilling, you see $4.00 a gallon gas as a way to do that.”

To be fair, McCain and his aides have publicly stated that in this battle, as well during his press for a temporary gas tax holiday, the Senator was not casting his lot with the economists. And in a moment of sincerity, a senior adviser to the Arizona Republican,

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, acknowledged that new offshore drilling wouldn’t have an immediate effect on gas prices. In fact, three weeks before he came out in support of drilling, the Senator himself acknowledged that offshore resources “would take years to develop.”

And yet McCain has been arguing that he is taking proactive steps to relieve the burden consumers are feeling at the pump, even declaring that offshore drilling “would be very helpful in the short term in resolving our energy crisis.” It is, some say, the antithesis of straight-talk politics.

“Obviously McCain’s people know this is kind of a joke,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “But they have the media frame that they want. They have Obama sitting there whining about the environment and he is there doing something about five-dollar gas, when in essence there is nothing his plan does for short term relief.”

Glad to see someone follwed up on this, but its like i’ve been saying this is just the gas tax holiday redux, McCain doens’t have any ideas that work, he just has ideas which sound good to desperate people

Climate Progress slams McCain energy plans

McCain proposes a 300 Million Prize to the company that produces a better electric car battery, sounds good right, wrong says Climate progress, its just another gimmick to pander for votes:

POINTLESS: First off, every energy and car company on the planet knows they’ll get rich by improving batteries. The world is probably spending $1 billion a year in this quest. This $300 million prize is a pointless gimmick, just a cynical move to get some good PR.

NOT HOW TECHNOLOGY WORKS: You don’t just invent a battery that has the “cost … to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.” That requires mass production, hundreds of thousands if not millions of batteries produced a year, to get the economies of scale and the benefits of the manufacturing learning curve. When you “invent” the batttery, you do a spreadsheet on what mass production costs would be. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare to try to figure out who would win this. Does the money go to the most plausible spreadsheet?

HASN’T EXXONMOBIL ALREADY SOLVED THIS PROBLEM?

I keep seeing this ad on TV that says ExxonMobil has made a “real breakthrough” in lithium-ion batteries that pretty much solves the problem. (ad here)

So is this battery prize idea just another way for McCain shuffle more money to the oil companies without actually lowing energy costs for consumers, like the gas tax holiday and the offshore drilling flip-flop? (see “EIA bombshell: Offshore drilling “would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030″.)

Liz Cheney says senator McCain is advocating the same policies as Bush

McCain advisor hints that attack would help McCain

Why is it when I read this I become suspicious?:

Earlier this year, after former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto was tragically assassinated, pundits speculated that the shocking attack may have benefited Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) politically. Now, McCain’s chief strategist, Charlie Black, tells Fortune that the “unfortunate event” of Bhutto’s death “helped us.” Asked if another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would help McCain as well, Black told Fortune that it would be “a big advantage to him“:

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an “unfortunate event,” says Black. “But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who’s ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us.” As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. “Certainly it would be a big advantage to him,” says Black.