Liberalguy

Let ‘Em Ride Donkey Carts By Arnold Ahlert (bio)

Politicians often say stupid things. But every once in a while, one says something so colossally stupid, so unintentionally revealing of their ignorance and prejudice it takes your breath away. Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: “Drilling is the failed energy policy of yesterday that has brought us record gas prices today.” Got that? Getting oil out of the ground and into your combustion-engine automobile is a “failed energy policy of yesterday.” And, in an Orwellian re-interpretation of basic supply-and-demand economics, attempting to increase the supply is what has brought us “record gas prices today.” It is hard to decide which is more distressing: Mrs. Pelosi’s cluelessness regarding the stubborn realities of economics and technology–or that fact that such a dunce commands such enormous power over the lives of ordinary Americans struggling to make ends meet. Oil companies should stop drilling for oil? It is a testament to our comatose media that Mrs. Pelosi hasn’t been asked: and then what? Have Americans ride bicycles until technology gives us oil-free cars? Wreak further havoc with both the international and domestic food supply pursuing the chimera of an all-ethanol transportation system? Allow other nations to hold our economy hostage–even as some of them plot our demise? Most Americans live in the real world. They face real world problems–none of which remotely touch someone like Nancy Pelosi. If every gas station closed tomorrow, people like the Speaker would never lack gas for their cars–or in Mrs. Pelosi’s case, jet fuel for her taxpayer-provided private jet. Environmentalism? There are two types of environmentalists: those who balance real world concerns against a totally pristine planet–and those whose mindless absolutism would have us riding donkey carts down main street and huddling against the cold on winter nights. With apologies to Marie Antoinette, that’s precisely what Mrs. Pelosi is telling the American people: let ‘em ride donkey carts. The good news is, if she gets her way, most Americans will know where to find the ass in charge.