President Prescient
THAT COULD BECOME A NICKNAME FOR GEORGE W. BUSH. For “Slow George” is proving to be a seer.
Remember how Democrats tried to belittle his call for a tax cut? Now they’re going along with a cut of well more than $1 billion and trying to put a good face on it. Remember how George W. and Dick Cheney were scolded by their critics for supposedly jumping the gun in warning about a softening economy? Turns out they were right on the mark.
But Bush’s biggest coup could be in the energy arena. Political foes who have tried to make hay over his pro-development agenda and oil-field roots have to be apoplectic over what appears to be a dramatic shift in public attitude.
According to a May 3-4 Newsweek poll, 52% of Americans said “developing new sources of energy” should be a more important priority for the United States than “protecting the environment.” And that’s a loaded question in favor of the environment, really. Imagine what the outcome would have been if the pollsters asked whether “ensuring reliable and affordable sources of energy” was more important than “environmental regulations.”
And lest you try to dismiss the poll as a fluke, consider that a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll of a week earlier found similar sentiment: Asked whether producing energy or protecting the environment should be given a higher priority, respondents split evenly, 44% to 44%.
These results are remarkable, given years of mainstream media brainwashing and the fact that until now the energy pinch has been felt only in the pocketbooks of most Americans (as costs rise at the pump and in the home) and not in supply interruptions. Even Californians ain’t seen nothing yet when it comes to rolling blackouts.
Radical environmentalists have over the years effectively exploited the public’s legitimate concern for a clean environment in order to impose unreasonable restrictions on growth and production. Maybe a silver lining in this energy crisis is that it will spell an end to the worst of these excesses. Bush and Cheney are promoting a balanced approach to the husbanding of our resources, and even Gray Davis at least claims that he’s trying to grease the skids for new power plants.
Hence the outcry from the camp of the radical enviros, whose wails are sure to grow as the public increasingly wises up.
Here’s a prediction: A sea change is coming in the public attitude toward nuclear energy, too.
Governor Blackout
NO EXPLANATION NECESSARY.
