The Thing Whose Name Must Never Be Mentioned

I finally got around to reading Tom Friedman's column for Wednesday, and his main point is dead right. It's sad that he even has to say it. Politicians should be falling over themselves to line up for energy independence.

When I say energy independence, I don't mean the Sarah Palin, Koch Industries, Halliburton kind. Their program, if you can call it that, is stupid. We don't have the oil in the ground to do it; we cannot continue to foul the air with the exhaust. We need safe nuclear power; we need decent rail; we need electric cars; we need solar power; we even need windmills, and perhaps things we haven't heard of. We'd be better off engineering those things, rather than the next generation jet fighter. We might very well start with Friedman's suggestion of a huge tax increase on gasoline. Why not?

It's too bad he clutters up the column with other dubious notions about the western world's accommodation with the Middle Eastern tyrants. The West certainly accommodates them, but he posits a version of the white man's burden to think we made them as they are, or that we have the power to make them something other than they are. We certainly will not control what they become. We certainly don't control which Middle Eastern individuals hate us and which do not.

If Not Now, When?

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