Newsweek's Michael Hirsh Transcribes McCain Campaign Spin on Energy

grist.org

Last October, Barack Obama laid out a detailed, ambitious, and comprehensive energy plan, and he's been talking about it ever since.

A couple weeks ago, John McCain let loose a flurry of one-off energy gimmicks -- a gas tax holiday, offshore drilling, a prize for a car battery -- which he crammed together under the heading "the Lexington Plan."

According to Washington Wise Man Michael Hirsh, in a mash note that would embarrass a crushing tween, he puts Obama on the defensive. After all, "no one really cares what Obama said last October." More specifically, Hirsh doesn't care -- he can't be bothered to look into the competing policy proposals and assess which is more credible. He cares about who, like, totally dissed who, and McCain's people tell him Obama's on the defensive, so that's what he's going with.

In doing so he reveals an almost total ignorance of the campaigns' records and positions. Like this:

Now it's McCain who has laid out a clear -- if questionably feasible -- energy vision for the future, while the Obama-ites are still rushing to put together a comprehensive paper gathering all his ideas on the current gas crisis and the long-term energy crisis.

While the Pony Express may not have gotten Hirsh his "comprehensive paper" yet, using an online internet search engine called "Google," I discovered that Obama has an entire website devoted to how he would solve the "long-term energy crisis." Didn't McCain's people send Hirsh the link?

Obama has a paper trail on these issues a mile long, while McCain just unveiled his Frankenstein policy weeks ago. But like most D.C. pundits, Hirsh has Anterograde Amnesia and cannot form new memories. He floats along on the present news cycle, innocent (and gullible) as a babe.

Then get this:

True, Obama has called for an investment of $150 billion over 10 years, dwarfing McCain's incentive plan, as Furman points out. But he hasn't spelled out how that would be used.

Having gotten a taste for this "Google" business, I returned to it to discover that Obama's energy "website" contains more than a dozen bullet points spelling out in great detail "how it would be used." Perhaps Newsweek could hire a research assistant to "search the web" for Hirsh?

This takes the cake though:

Like McCain's embrace of global warming as a national-security issue, his new stance on energy is a studied repudiation of the Bush administration.

Like McCain, Bush consistently refers to climate in terms of "energy security" (his administration just put out a National Intelligence Assessment that deems global warming a national security threat). Like McCain, Bush supports offshore drilling and more oil and gas exploration in the West. Like McCain, Bush supports substantial new pork for nuclear power and "clean coal." Like McCain, Bush opposes increasing efficiency or performance standards for specific economic sectors. Like McCain, Bush is open to a gas tax holiday.

If McCain was aiming for a "studied repudiation" of Bush on energy, he shot somewhat wide of the mark.

And if Hirsh thinks an incoherent amalgam of media-friendly poses makes a candidate a "grown up," he's been in Washington way, way too long.

Comments

[UncleHomer]

One thing I like about this place is getting reminded that I'm not as smart as I think I am. Thanks for the link to Obama's energy policy web site. I can't believe I missed it especially since it is by in large exactly what I think we need to do especially about oil, before we move from a recession into a depression, and in the bigger picture global warming.

Nothing else I've heard takes this comprehensive and in my opinion correct approach to solving our energy problems, as well as fighting global warming.

[kjdwyer]

Yet another example of how the Republican Party is completely out of touch with the issues of the day. This also demonstrates how the mainstream media has become wholly and completely unreliable when it comes to issues of simple fact checking.

Republicans have spent the last three decades thwarting reforms to our energy policy, not to mention denying the existence of global warming and now that both are inextricably entwined hot button issues, they have no vocabulary to deal with them.

McCain's proposals are embarrassingly deficient and Michael Hirsh's characterization of them is the kind of thing that used to end a journalist's career. How can Newsweek tolerate this degree of incompetence? Have they no integrity? Truly, truly pathetic. Kudos to Roberts for pointing it out.

[krocklin]

This is typical of the media. Each journalist is simply interested in advancing his or her own career, with little interest in fleshing out their stories with informative research.

[eesmm]

The part of the plan I love the most is the notion of the battery lottery.

The battery plan is sound, but not for the reasons that McCain is talking about. It is also fundamentally flawed, but I'll get to that in a moment.

As has been widely reported, batteries for hybrids are made from parts collected all over the world, making the net product vastly more damaging to the environment than traditionally powered cars to produce. If the US were to create a home-grown battery technology there is a slim chance that it could be developed from more locally available components, reducing environmental impact of its manufacture. There is another slim chance that this manufacture could take place in the US, creating jobs for some lucky town(s).

Unfortunately, offsetting these "slim chances" of hope is the gaping flaw in the logic behind the improved battery technology: that the energy he proposes these batteries store will initially come from fossil fuels in the gas tank. As America runs itself ragged in a bucket line passing oil faster and faster, all McCain wants to do is build a better bucket rather than address the issue of putting out the fire.

[KQuarksSuperKollider]

McBush has no vision for this country. He is actually running a Kerryesque campaign on his bio with no big plans or vision for this country. His energy plan is another incohesive hodge podge of minor proposals, gimmicks like his $300MM game show prize, oxymoronical statements like clean coal or even worse his grandiose ideas like his 45 new energy plants where he does not say how they are going to be funded or how we are going to get rid of the waste. McBush just cares about being C-in-C and will leave everything else up to someone else. McBush has never taken much of a lead in domestic policy except to cosign bills someone else wrote to grandstand in the Senate. Kennedy's people wrote the comprehensive immigration bill and ran all the negotiations. Fiengold's people wrote the campaign finance law. McBush has a history of self promotion and participates little in the nuts and bolts issues in the senate that is unless he is writing letters for his lobbyist cronies to get huge military contracts.

Obama on the other hand has a cohesive and well though out energy policy that has short term, mid term and long term goals. Moreover Obama knows that these initiatives need to be funded and wants to invest $15MMM/year on these new energy pathways.

[acv]

"Didn't McCain's people send Hirsh the link?"
"Using an online internet search engine called "Google," I discovered that Obama has an entire website devoted to how he would solve the "long-term energy crisis." Didn't McCain's people send Hirsh the link?"
I know why McCain's camp didn't send a link or Google Obama's energy plan. Deep breath - John McCain does not know how to use a computer. He sets the tone and ,therefore, it doesn't occur to this staff to use a computer. He's applying jfor the job of to the President and doesn't have computer skills.
See for yourself at the following link - http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1884558/6206369 or Google (you know what that is, right?) search using "McCain PC or Mac."

[HAP]

Great post.