Answer the lady's question

A spokesman for the Export-Import Bank has reacted via Politico to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's Facebook op-ed which was critical of the bank's $2 billion loan to Brazilian oil company Petrobras.

Phil Cogan's arguments strike us nothing more than some fancy footwork intended to divert attention away from the fact that neither he nor anyone representing President Obama has answered Palin's question:

"So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil...?"

Petrobras, which is owned by Brazil's government, has had its share of low earnings during the lean months that most of the world's oil companies have experienced due to low market prices for crude. But the company, in a recent report by Zack's, an investment research firm, should see its earnings increase in the medium term. And with Latin America's largest economy, Brazil, according to Reuters, appears headed for recovery. So why does it need our money?

A recent IBD editorial lists several reasons, some of them political, why the loan doesn't seem like such a bad idea to the editors. But none of the arguments on either side of the issue strike us as being relevant until Sarah Palin's question is answered. In fact, the IBD editorial poses essentially the same query:

"If lending money to Brazil for oil is a good idea, isn't freeing our own companies to develop America's vast reserves an even better one?"

So it would be helpful if the Obama administration would answer it instead of taking cheap shots at Palin like this footnote to the Politico piece:

"This is like her and her death panels," the official said.

That doesn't answer the lady's question. But clearly that wasn't the intent of the anonymous White House source who planted it  in Politico's fertile dirt.

While we're waiting on an answer to Sarah Palin's question, we have one of our own. If this loan, from one leftist government to another, is simply an attempt to purchase political goodwill from the Brazilians, why doesn't the Obama Administration just stand up and say so?

Related: Flopping Aces exposes the Soros connection here, and Examiner Nola Redd has some good questions of her own about the deal here. Carlos Echevarria's take is here.

- JP

New Palin Facebook op-ed slams Obama energy policy

Sarah Palin has a new post up on her Facebook Notes page. The focus of her latest statement is a familiar issue for the former Alaska governor - energy:

YOUR TAX DOLLARS HARD AT WORK: FIRST CARS, NOW FOREIGN OIL.

Today's Wall Street Journal contains some puzzling news for all Americans who are impacted by high energy prices and who share the goal of moving us toward energy independence.

For years, states rich with an abundance of oil and natural gas have been begging Washington, DC politicians for the right to develop their own natural resources on federal lands and off shore. Such development would mean good paying jobs here in the United States (with health benefits) and the resulting royalties and taxes would provide money for federal coffers that would potentially off-set the need for higher income taxes, reduce the federal debt and deficits, or even help fund a trillion dollar health care plan if one were so inclined to support such a plan.

So why is it that during these tough times, when we have great needs at home, the Obama White House is prepared to send more than two billion of your hard-earned tax dollars to Brazil so that the nation's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, can drill off shore and create jobs developing its own resources? That's all Americans want; but such rational energy development has been continually thwarted by rabid environmentalists, faceless bureaucrats and a seemingly endless parade of lawsuits aimed at shutting down new energy projects.

I'll speak for the talent I have personally witnessed on the oil fields in Alaska when I say no other country in the world has a stronger workforce than America, no other country in the world has better safety standards than America, and no other country in the world has stricter environmental standards than America. Come to Alaska to witness how oil and gas can be developed simultaneously with the preservation of our eco-system. America has the resources. We deserve the opportunity to develop our resources no less than the Brazilians. Millions of Americans know it is true: "Drill, baby, drill." Alaska is proof you can drill and develop, and preserve nature, with its magnificent caribou herds passing by the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), completely unaffected. One has to wonder if Obama is playing politics and perhaps refusing a "win" for some states just to play to the left with our money.

The new Gulf of Mexico lease sales tomorrow sound promising and perhaps will move some states in the right direction, but we all know that the extreme environmentalists who serve to block progress elsewhere, including in Alaska, continue to block opportunities. These environmentalists are putting our nation in peril and forcing us to rely on unstable and hostile foreign countries. Mr. Obama can stop the extreme tactics and exert proper government authority to encourage resource development and create jobs and health benefits in the U.S.; instead, he chooses to use American dollars in Brazil that will help to pay the salaries and benefits for Brazilians to drill for resources when the need and desire is great in America.

Buy American is a wonderful slogan, but you can't say in one breath that you want to strengthen our economy and stimulate it, and then in another ship our much-needed dollars to a nation desperate to drill while depriving us of the same opportunity.

- Sarah Palin

Related: Ed Morrissey has background on the Petrobras deal here, and The New York Times has a profile of Brazil's leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva here.

Update: Early blogger reaction at Say Anything here, Gateway Pundit here, Hyscience here and Ruby Slippers here.

- JP