A response to why I'm pissed off at the McCain energy plan

As a response to a question someone asked me:

I think the problem is in the hypocrisy that McCain is engaging in.

"I will pursue every idea to save money on energy!" McCain proclaims. Nuclear, oil drilling, wind, solar, alternative. His commercials have pictures of wind farms. Try everything, he reminds us over and over again!

Only - his own record shows the lie. He has spent 26 years voting against alternative energy. He was against offshore drilling until 3 months ago - just before he started getting about $1.1 million in donations from oil company execs. He missed every vote on extending energy credits - even though he keeps telling us that we need to "do everything! Now!"

And his #1 item? Offshore drilling. Something that would make oil companies richer, would not ensure that the energy produced would be sold locally (right now, US produced oil is still sell something like 15-25% of their oil on the world market, while oil companies bemoan they don't have enough), the US government's own report says it will take at least 7 years before an offshore rig is really working (though amazingly, the McCain campaign went from "7 years but this will have psychological benefits on the markets now" to "I hear from oil companies they can have it running in 6 months!".

That is what people like myself are bitching about. If McCain was serious about energy independence and "trying all solutions", he wouldn't have waited until a month ago to start saying "Hey, I love off shore oil drilling and nuclear. Oh, yeah - and wind, while we're at it!" He would have been working with the Republican majority in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 to get Bush to approve offshore drilling (if he really thought it would help), or to fund those nuclear plants, or to do his "magic battery" prize he's been talking up.

He didn't. He spent that time telling people that the war in Iraq was a success, that it would be over in "another 6 months", that he was pleased with Bush's performance so far (until late 2007, when he saw the winds of change and decided to start bashing Bush to get votes). Maybe he thought that Iraq would start supplying oil on the cheap, so we wouldn't have to worry about it. Or he didn't see the upcoming financial collapse or how much money the US would borrow to fund the Iraq war, which lead to a lower value dollar, which lead to oil being more expensive for the US market. Maybe he just didn't care, since he has 8 houses and his wife has hundreds of millions (as he calls his opponent the elitist for working with inner city Chicago people for years) and he has no real idea what it's like to be a single income family with a 60 minute drive and doing everything you can to save money as groceries get more expensive and gas keeps going up.

Like me.

So yeah, I'm pissed at McCain for at the last minute finding "energy independence", while voting against (or ignoring) bills that would actually help to achieve it. I'm pissed at McCain for claiming to be for "all solutions", but 90% of his solutions are "more money to big oil" and "more money to big nuclear" instead of "democratize energy production to give more power to the individual - you know, the stuff that conservatives claim is so important while they support big business." I'm pissed at him lying about the others guy's position while lying about his own record and plan.

And I'm pissed at us, and myself, for a nation for being so incredibly stupid for so long.