I saw clownage out in full force on Meet the Press this morning. Thanks to host Tim Russert's well-framed setups on our current energy predicament, Senator Dick Durbin overshadowed everyone on the round-table with his pointed comments. Disregarding his populism, Durbin alone understood that our current problems require real leadership on the order of the Apollo program. I agree and say go after big oil, go after windfall profits, create extra taxes, spread the pain everywhere and make it in your face. The Dems seem to understand this and the Rethugs respond with an energy rebate in the form of $100 checks.
The other panelists:
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman : A blathering, stuttering little dickweed who started to lay the blame on scientists for not having "the right enzymes" ready for full-scale ethanol production. He claimed that Durbin was "too smart to believe in what he said". All-in-all, a smug prick.
American Petroleum Institute's Red Caveney : A slightly thinner looking version of Lee Raymond, a property required to fit snugly in the back pocket of Exxon-Mobil, he responded to Russert's claim that Exxon only spent $10M on direct alternative energy research by saying that the whole industry spent $400B on research. Those two numbers don't jive, but Russert did not follow up. He also supported Bodman by stating "complicated enzymes" held back progress on renewable fuels.
Cable pundit Jim Cramer: The bug-eyed one started ranting about bringing in ethanol from Brazil. Other than that, he claimed the real problem lay in the lack of refinery capacity. Clearly clueless.
Energy "expert" Daniel Yergin: An audible sound-alike to the somnambulistic Charles Krauthammer, Yergin back-pedalled furiously from his utopian pronouncements of just this last year. This abject wrongness should not prevent him losing his newly annointed position of chief energy analyst for NBC News in the future.