I noted the other day that John McCain had falsely claimed that Sarah Palin was governor of the state that provided 20% of the nation’s energy.
Now aside from the fact that McCain is wrong about his claim that Alaska provides 20% of our energy supply (it provides 20% of our oil, relatively little–at least thus far–of our natural gas, and insignificant amounts of coal, nuclear, wind, or solar power), he’s basically arguing that a guy like George Bush has the national security qualifications to be President.
And we saw how well that worked out.
All in all, I’d say, McCain’s making a great case for voting against Sarah Palin.
Apparently, the woman McCain says more about energy than anyone else in the country–Sarah Palin–believes the same erroneous thing.
GIBSON: But this is not just reforming a government. This is also running a government on the huge international stage in a very dangerous world. When I asked John McCain about your national security credentials, he cited the fact that you have commanded the Alaskan National Guard and that Alaska is close to Russia. Are those sufficient credentials?
PALIN: But it is about reform of government and it’s about putting government back on the side of the people, and that has much to do with foreign policy and national security issues Let me speak specifically about a credential that I do bring to this table, Charlie, and that’s with the energy independence that I’ve been working on for these years as the governor of this state that produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy, that I worked on as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, overseeing the oil and gas development in our state to produce more for the United States.
GIBSON: I know. I’m just saying that national security is a whole lot more than energy.
PALIN: It is, but I want you to not lose sight of the fact that energy is a foundation of national security. It’s that important. It’s that significant.[my emphasis]
Here’s FactCheck.org correcting McCain and Palin (and me–turns out I was too generous to Alaska in my earlier post):
Palin claims Alaska "produces nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy." That’s not true.
Alaska did produce 14 percent of all the oil from U.S. wells last year, but that’s a far cry from all the "energy" produced in the U.S.
Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent, according to the official figures kept by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
And if by "supply" Palin meant all the energy consumed in the U.S., and not just produced here, then Alaska’s production accounted for only 2.4 percent.
Now, I’m not so interested that McCain and Palin have been caught in a lie, again. After all, that’s getting to be old hat. Rather, I’m interested in what it says that a team claiming to support all sorts of alternative energy sources simply forget about those sources when they’re making up talking points?
Is this the proof that McCain, who used to support alternative energy has ditched that support in favor of an exclusive love affair with big oil?
Or is Sarah Palin just using this opportunity to shamelessly booster for Alaska’s oil industry, in case this Veep thing doesn’t work out?
I don’t know the answer–but the consistency of this erroneous talking point sure suggests that when they were screaming "Drill! Baby! Drill!" they meant "Drill and Do Nothing But Drill!"