Certain Republicans, including President George W. Bush and presidential candidate John McCain, who are obviously on the political dole of big oil, now want the American public to believe, wildly, that dumping a decades-old moratorium on drilling for oil off the inshore coastlines of some of the world’s most beautiful beaches will someone bring down the price of gasoline in the short term.

Glynn Wilson

A gas well in sight of the beach on the Fort Morgan Peninsula on Alabama’s Gulf Coast… Now they want oil wells too?

I was there covering the story in the late 1980s when some of the first big public hearings took place in Florida, when an activist public and tourism-related industries fought off big oil and set a 100-mile limit inside which no oil wells could be anchored.

Considering the hutzpa of big oil after having the run of the White House for the past seven-and-a-half years, this move is no surprise.

But even a safe conservative family newspaper like USA Today recognizes the unreality of it all.

As gasoline soars beyond $4 a gallon, the paper reported recently, President Bush and his would-be Republican successor, John McCain, see a viable source of domestic production along the coasts of America. Democrat Barack Obama and the nation’s environmentalists see a threat to pristine waters and beaches — and little help at the pump from offshore drilling.

Worth the risk? Debate on offshore drilling heats up

Of course that’s one of those two-sided, so-called objective treatments American newspapers have become famous for, funded as they are by big corporate advertising dollars. But the truth is, we are not going to stand by and watch big oil grab the nation’s coastlines and muck them up forever for a few more months worth of oil. It just ain’t gonna happen.

And if Obama tries backtracking on the issue and hints at a compromise with big oil by changing his position, that will be the second major campaign promise he’s broken since becoming the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president. His vote for the FISA bill is not forgotten…

Obama Shifts, Says He MAY Back Offshore Drilling