Oil Slicks and Drill Baby Drill

(First off, let me note that I will be covering the Times Square bomb attempt, but I decided to wait until more is known.)

It was really only a matter of time until this happened.  And it came at a politically convenient/inconvenient time depending on who you are.  In real terms, the huge oil spill off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico is not good for anyone.  There are literally no winners in this situation, but the irony of environmental disaster is each catastrophe pulls more people over to the green movement.  A picture of a oil-stained pelican will surface soon (give it time), and when it does, pelican lovers everywhere will be joining the green movement.  And let’s face it.  We all love pelicans.

Now, for those of you who haven’t been following it, what happened with this particular oil slick is that an oil rig, which was pumping up oil from the ocean floor, caught on fire and then sunk.  Which broke off the pumps.  So now untold amounts of oil are billowing out into the ocean, which makes it a much less certain catastrophe than the Exxon-Valdez spill, which had a known finite amount.

This might not be worse yet, but it very well could be in a few more days.  It’s g0ing to take undersea robots to cork up this leak, and who knows if the oil will mutate them into sentient, murderous Cylons.  Point is: plugging it is tough.

So what are the political ramifications?  First off, this is a relatively close offshore drilling platform, but it doesn’t technically count as the offshore “drill baby drill” that the Republicans have been pushing so hard.  If this is, as expected, a catastrophic spill, it would still be better than if the same happened at a closer oil rig.

This also comes less than a month after Obama said he was willing to invest in offshore drilling.  The public tide can be more or less expected to turn against him on this one (particularly the public tide in the oily Gulf area) at least to some extent, and it will likely mobilize the opponents of offshore drilling in addition to being a ballin’ recruitment tool.

It will also likely give some people on the fence a reality check about the risks of offshore drilling.  Another big thing that came up recently was the approval of a wind energy farm off the coast of Cape Cod and the approval of the first nuclear energy plant since Three Mile Island.  These cleaner projects (I said cleaner, not clean, greenies) are moving along at a nice clip, and although they fuel things totally different than oil, they will likely make people a little more open to alternative energy sources.

There’s no denying that oil is the engine that the United States runs on.  But the environmental and political risks that come along with it are huge, and it’s questionable as to whether or not offshore drilling is a good idea.  On the other hand, a gas and oil crisis right now would be absolutely horrible for America’s flagging economy, and the rest of the world for that matter.  The only way out, it seems, is through alternative energy, but there is no viable, short-term solution to our oil dependency just yet.

So Obama might be forced to drill regardless.  And if he has to do that, it will lose him clout on the left, and a growing portion of the moderates.  How will Obama get out of this one?  Tune in next week!