Sarah Palin, energy and the media left narrative

How to drown out the anti-Palin narrative
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The Democrat/Media Complex (DMC) has kept its anti-Palin narrative going since the Tuscon shootings. It was built on SarahPAC's "Take Back The 20" map until conservative new media flooded the Web with Democrat bulls eye maps and the bulls eye that Markos Moulitsas put on Rep. Giffords' district in 2008. So the corrupt DMC changed its narrative, and suddenly it was all about blood libels. At least it was about blood libels until Jewish conservatives and even a prominent Jewish liberal of good character stood up in defense of Gov. Palin on that non-issue, and it was revealed that the DMC had itself used the term in a manner that went well beyond the historical ethic/religious context. So it was time to morph the narrative again, and it became about "civility" in politics, which is an oxymoron. The DMC really shouldn't go there, and we feel safe in predicting that this one won't last very long. Just where the DMC narrative will go next we're not sure, but surely such fertile imaginations as those on the left will think of something.

Many conservatives believe the DMC is trying to use its narrative to destroy Sarah Palin's career, which is certainly true. The left has been attempting to do that since August, 2008, so it's nothing new. But there's much more involved here, as Gov. Palin herself pointed out in her Monday night interview:

There's this trifecta thing going on in our country right now that's going to bring America to her knees if Congress doesn't start addressing the issues at hand. That being our growing debt, a looming energy crisis if we don't start domestically developing our resources, and some of the national security policies that have been adopted and enacted, like the signing and the ratification of the START treaty that Russia's Duma won't even ratify because there are misinterpretations of what the preamble means.

So, we have these things going on right now that have got to be addressed, and Congress has got to get back to work. And it's just much easier, I believe, for critics of common-sense conservative agenda to try to divert and distract from the issues at hand, those tasks that must be addressed today.

One component of that trifecta the governor mentioned is energy, an issue which appears on the national radar scope, it seems, only when the pump price of gasoline rises above the three-dollar level. The DMC desperately wants to keep this issue out of its anti-Palin narrative, as P.J. Gladnick wrote Monday at the Washington Examiner's website:

"Progressives" would think that the general public was angry about something Sarah Palin said such as using the "blood libel" phrase which is often used to describe a whole host of unfair charges. However, there is something that is currently getting little play in the media that is truly infuriating the public...rising gasoline prices. The upward creep in prices seems to have increased its rate of climb in recent days. Gasoline prices that just a few weeks ago seemed outrageously high suddenly appear to be quite reasonable. Many of you have your own "secret" gas station where you are sure the gasoline prices have somehow resisted the general rise. You drive several miles out of your way to reach that oasis of low prices and...you find out that the prices there pretty much match the intolerable prices of all the other gas stations.

This is why I would love to be present when liberal pollsters question people about their views on Sarah Palin at a gas station...

The DMC knows that any discussion of rising pump prices would lead to a further dialog on the energy crisis which is boiling under the surface of its narrative. As Gary Bray explains at Examiner.com:

The last poll after the BP accident showed over 65% of Americans were for drilling for oil which means the real number is closer to 75% and likely 15-20% were against it.... We are in real danger of having gas pass $4/gal, which the last time it happened was the trigger for the Obama meltdown.. That was when people were paying more for their tanks of gas and groceries and could no longer pay their mortgages. Imagine what would happen now as more and more are living closer to the bone.

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We now lose over 10,000 jobs in one of the most important industries of our economy for no real reason, which in turn likely costs millions of jobs. While every other country we are competing with is drilling for oil around the world and locking up contracts, we are closing our resources. There couldn’t be a more effective way to kill the economy than to cut the lifeblood of commerce... Once the rising cost of transportation is built into the inflating cost of goods and services, we are going to see a dramatic slowdown and perhaps another meltdown, as a new wave of foreclosures moves across the Country thanks to our fossil fuel moratorium.

This of course is one of the main reasons the Ivy Leaguers and the rest of the DNC is terrified of Sarah Palin since she not only is one of the experts on the oil and gas industry, she has common sense. The latter is something the libs can’t deal with or have a connection to. They need to vilify rather than be exposed by [debate on] the issues. Palin is a major pain in the donkey since she is not only articulate and fearless, she represents an area where they have no credibility. She owns this argument, as they have been shown as frauds and charlatans to Americans through the Global Warming fiasco and now the Gulf and coal shutdowns.

No one wants to end our dependence on foreign oil more than Sarah Palin. She has a potential ally in financier and former oil baron T. Boone Pickens, who in a 2009 op-ed made a bold proposal:

America has an abundance of a nearly perfect substitute for imported oil: domestic natural gas.

The Potential Gas Committee released a report indicating the U.S. has as much as 2 quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, or a century's worth at the present consumption rate. Advances in drilling techniques and technology over recent decades have made the natural gas in the enormous shale fields of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Appalachia available for recovery.

About 70% of the oil we import is used as fuel for America's 250 million cars and light trucks and 6.5 million heavy trucks. Nearly half of the oil used for transportation is used as diesel fuel to power 18-wheelers. Natural gas is the only alternative. It is not only more abundant; it costs half as much and emits almost 30% less carbon dioxide.

If, in the normal course of replacements, we exchanged those 6.5 million heavy trucks running on largely imported diesel for new ones running on domestic natural gas, we could reduce our imports by 2.5 million barrels per day. We would be able to reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East by half in only seven years.

It will take longer to rotate passenger vehicles and light trucks away from gasoline and onto other alternatives: natural gas, batteries and fuel cells. But if we had a plan to do that we would be able to stop competing with the Chinese for oil.

This is a national security concern, an environmental concern and an economic concern.

The United States does not have a refueling infrastructure for natural gas as a motor fuel, but that is more of an opportunity than a problem. Just imagine all of the construction jobs that would be created if building such an infrastructure were a national priority. Moreover, these jobs would be created in every state in the union as each one of the nation's 10,000 truck stops would get an extreme makeover. Thousands of manufacturing jobs would also be created to build the storage tanks and natural gas "pumps" for these refueling stations.

And speaking of makeovers, there are roughly 150 oil refineries in the country, and they need some work as well, which means more construction jobs. Not only could these refineries be retasked to process less diesel and more gasoline, but those which refine fuel oil for heating homes could also be freed up to make more gasoline if we had an energy plan which called for conversion from fuel oil to cleaner burning natural gas to heat homes, especially in the northeast. More construction jobs would be needed to build natural gas pipelines and distribution facilities as well. And literally hundreds of thousands of jobs in the oil and gas industry would bloom for exploration and production of this vast natural resource.

Standing against this solution to our energy independence and unemployment woes, of course, is the Democrat/Media Complex. They know full well what a boost to our economy the energy ideas that have been advocated by Gov. Palin and Mr. Pickens would be. But they fear the Green Lobby, which would not stand for such common sense solutions. Even though environmentalists are well aware that natural gas burns cleaner than diesel, gasoline or even the once-vaunted ethanol, it is not a "renewable resource," and therefore they oppose it.

In October, 2009, Gov. Palin made the case in National Review for natural gas as an intermediate remedy to energy needs:

It contains fewer pollutants than other fossil fuels, it’s easier to collect and process, and it is found throughout our country. In Alaska, we’re developing the largest private-sector energy project in history — a 3,000-mile, $40 billion pipeline to transport hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to markets across the United States. Onshore and offshore na­tural gas from Alaska and the Lower 48 can satisfy a large part of our energy needs for decades, bringing us closer to energy independence. Whether we use it to power natural-gas cars or to run natural-gas power plants that charge electric cars — or ideally for both — natural gas can act as a clean “bridge fuel” to a future when more renewable sources are available.

But the Green Lobby doesn't want a bridge fuel. Greenies want only renewable fuel and they want it now. This is both short-sighted and childish. Our nation desperately needs an "all-of-the-above" energy plan which has natural gas as one of its key components. We are willing to bet that if Sarah Palin and T. Boone Pickens were to work together, they could develop an impressive national energy plan and present it in a white paper. And nothing would drown out the DMC narrative more effectively than such a strong alliance and such a bold move. Can you imagine the press conference? "Energy-related questions only, ladies and gentlemen." Forced to focus on an actual issue critical to national security, the future of our economy and jobs which would improved the lives of millions of Americans, the lamestream media wouldn't even know what to ask. It's not as easy as incuriously passing along propaganda from leftist blogs.

- JP