The issue has become, to some extent, the Republican answer to any and all questions that come up on the economy. McCain returns to it in nearly every speech on the subject, even though drilling has as much to do with the collapse of Wall Street financial firms or the falling job market as abortion does. The drilling issue may even help explain his choice of running mate — Sarah Palin's one area of true expertise can be said to be the politics of energy extraction.

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Originally Posted by roachboy my favorite example of conservative "debate" about this came from cspan, one of those special session streams that allows members to talk to the empty chamber and the cspan audience which i suspect is not much more populous. a representative from florida. he had a chart. he said that, unlike everyone else, he had actually visited anwar. he said that the whole thing was based on a hoax, that there was no wilderness there. he said he asked his guide where the trees were and his guide said there were no trees for hundreds of miles only tundra and the congressman said there are no trees so there is no wilderness. therefore all of this was a hoax perpetrated with the sole intent of saving little critters who do not even live in a wilderness because there can't be one without trees.

The US needs to start drilling for off-shore oil because China is taking "American oil" off the coast of Cuba, just "60 miles off the coast of Florida." In the words of Dick Cheney, "Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply."

Not a drop of oil was spilled in the Gulf during hurricanes over the last few years....when in fact in 2005, Katrina and Rita caused 124 offshore spills for a total of 743,700 gallons. The largest of these spills dropped 152,250 gallons, well over the 100,000 gallon threshhold considered a "major spill." The impact of Ike has yet to be made public by the Interior Dept...perhaps for fear that it might further contradict their talking point.