Will Anyone Seriously Question T. Boone Pickens at the Big Tent?

I wrote last week about my disdain for Democrats and environmentalists who have been foolishly praising T. Boone Pickens lately. After explaining why liberals should not be legitimizing this snake oil salesman, I concluded:

Anyone who claims to care about the planet and collaborates with or legitimizes this guy comes off as foolish and loses major credibility.

Since then, we've seen more evidence and some pretty compelling arguments from the likes of Apollo Gonzales at NRDC, Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars, Edgery at EENRblog, and of course, Adam Siegel at Get Energy Smart Now.

Crunchtime is coming for two leaders on the left who will be speaking on a panel with Pickens on Wednesday at 1pm in The Big Tent. Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club and John Podesta, President and Chief Executive Officer of American Progress, both have a deadly serious decision to make. Will they a) greenwash a Republican operative oil man who funded the swift boat vets and has plans to make billions selling natural gas and exploiting our water supply? or b) do the right thing?

I try to remain optimistic on such matters but recent statements released by Pope and Podesta make that very difficult.

Podesta:

"Today, with the release of the Pickens Plan, we can start having the right debate."

"The plan that T. Boone Pickens has put forward today is a major step in the right direction."

Pope:

"To put it plainly, T. Boone Pickens is out to save America."

Since it appears unlikely that John Podesta or Carl Pope will be asking T. Boone Pickens the hard questions, we're going to have to pick up the slack. If they allow questions at the panel at 1pm tomorrow at the Digg Stage of the Big Tent, I'll be asking Pickens the best question I can come up with. If you are in Denver and are able to attend the event, I strongly encourage you to do so as well. The costs associated with letting an oil man lead the national conversation on energy are too great.

With that in mind, what question should I ask T. Boone Pickens tomorrow? What would you ask if you could be there? Here are a few that I've come up with, but I'm mostly curious to see what others think.

Given your political history, why should anyone in the Democratic party take you seriously?

How long do you think it will take the United States to stop using fossil fuels entirely?

Do you think global warming is a serious problem, if so, what should we do to address it?

Will you promise now that you will not support John McCain in the Presidential campaign?

I'm looking forward to your ideas for questions!

For more Huffington Post coverage of the Democratic National Convention, visit our Politics @ the DNC page, our Democratic Convention Big News Page, and our HuffPost bloggers' Twitter feed, live from Denver.

Follow Josh Nelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/josh_nelson

Comments

[sheila]

06:05 PM on 08/28/2008

it's not his creepy mercenary past that's the problem, it's his creepy mercenary PRESENT. i don't care if he supports McCain and i don't care if he greenwashes his disgusting plan with windmills. I care that Big Centralized Energy Monopolists are still getting credibility nowadays despite the ENORMOUS environmental and financial harm they do to the nation. It's not just the fuel that is harmful, people. new transmission lines will emit so many GHGs that all his wind farms combined cannot offset them, even though they are killing close to a million acres of productive land. he is exercising eminent domain in 11 counties through a fraudulent water board he created. he is draining an aquifer and is demanding massive taxpayer bleedouts, which will be returned in the form of price and supply manipulations.

sorry, i want INDEPENDENCE FROM ALL BIG ENERGY INCLUDING PICKENS. i want my tax and ratepayer dollars spent getting US point of use solutions, not lining some profiteers dirty pockets.

[research]

02:37 PM on 08/28/2008

Separate the Man from the Plan.

I don't trust TBP. I wouldn't put him in charge of anything.

His stated plan is excellent.

Just make sure you read the fine print when dealing with TBP, and count your fingers afterword.

Rooftop solar and wind are even better.

[SeenItBefore]

06:02 PM on 08/27/2008

For pity sake... you want energy independence, pony up the bucks and do what I did... Get some solar panels and a wind generator and tell the local co-op to kiss your ass. You will have do without air conditioning and convection ovens, but what the hell!

The reason this country will NEVER wean itself from oil and unlimited energy is simple. We, as a nation, are the laziest SOB's on earth. We are the most entitled and the most conceited. We expect everything they lied to us about in the 50's. Remember nuclear power and how it would be FREE! How about men on Mars by 1990? Where are those flying cars? How about world peace? Where is... well, the list goes on forever.

Just remember, nothing happens until YOU make it happen. So, go out and make something happen. Oh, and you have to do it now, because the fabric of time doesn't recognize later.

[lorraineschwanke]

01:53 AM on 08/27/2008

Pickens may have funded the swift boat veterans for truth in the past but lets look at what he is doing now. Instead of being like so many others in our government and private sector who are supporting big oil and its continued destruction of our nation and world as a whole he is funding renewable energy solutions and looking towards a future where our country is energy independent. There are many democrats who see the importance of letting go of the past and collectively solving our problems to reach a brighter future. For example there are the Nevada delegates(posted on the Reno-Gazette journal website) who came out publicly saying that they could see Pickens as a man who has great ideas for our future and in a time where nothing is getting done these are the solutions that we must pursue to get anything done. We don’t need any more petty quarrelling we need to pursue the good options that are before us, together and with the work ethic that Americans have always had.

[KillTheMessenger]

03:15 PM on 08/27/2008

Ahhh, good old Christian values:

Turn the other "cheek" and say

"Mr. T, Sir, please, can I have another?"

[franciscagrant]

01:28 AM on 08/27/2008

Thank goodness that Nelson seems to be in the minority in the Democratic Party in regards to his shortsighted ideas about the Pickens Plan. Many democrats have analyzed and approved of Pickens Plan, sighting it as one of the most ambitious and well thought out proposals to begin solving our nationwide energy crisis. Many have been mature enough to distance Pickens politics from the movement he has created and hopefully people like Nelson will soon figure out the necessity of our getting together as a country and crossing the party line to solve the problems that matter most.

[jjaus65]

12:49 AM on 08/27/2008

Apparently, Josh Nelson didn’t get the Obama playbook for the Denver convention with a theme of bringing America together again and is still intent on turning this into a partisan rumble. Just this evening, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius told the convention it is time “to fix our divisive politics…turn the page on the politics of the past.” What does Boone Pickens’ vote – or anybody else’s vote – in November have to do with whether the Pickens Plan is the most viable and best approach to achieve the nation’s long-range energy goals and reduce our reliance on foreign oil?

[collinskenneth5]

12:43 AM on 08/27/2008

Some solid HuffPo back and forth. About the same time Nelson was attempting to further discredit Boone Pickens and to rally bloggers against the Pickens Plan on some flawed basis that Pickens is a Republican, another post by Marguerite Manteau appeared on the HP with the headline “America Hungry For More Pickens Boldness.” She wrote that Pickens is “the first to present us with a real plan, big enough to capture our imagination.” Nelson’s on-going and misdirected effort to undercut Boone Pickens and the Pickens Plan is just another example of how misguided his opposition to the Pickens Plan really is. Manteau wins this round

[brandonshaw]

12:19 AM on 08/27/2008

I am so happy to see that although there are a few people like Nelson who are unable to move on from the past that there is a huge community on both sides of the party continuum that are willing to see that Pickens and his Plan are not for a particular political leaning but for the American people as a whole who want someone to give them an ambitious energy plan that they can work with and goals that they can work towards. We all need to be in this together if anything is going to get done.

[magen]

04:49 PM on 08/26/2008

Never trust an oilman from TX.

[amosnapoleon]

12:55 AM on 08/27/2008

In this argument Nelson might has well have just stated that he had nothing intelligent to say to discredit the plan but in fact just did not like T. Boone Pickens the man. He at no point articulated any of the shortcomings of the plan but instead just attacked the history of a man who is pushing it. The Pickens Plan is independent of partisan politics and as seen from the online community of over 120,000 people that it has created of people all working ambitiously towards solutions for energy independence it is in many ways independent from Pickens itself. We all need to realize the potential of a movement like this to unite the many parts of the country that in the past have never had access to the energy debate and to move forward not as partisans but as Americans to embrace a new future.