When President Bush recently urged Congress to lift the moratorium on both domestic and offshore drilling for oil, the response from the Democrats was swift and predictable.  “We can’t drill our way out of this problem,” they cried in unison.  This mantra from the Dems seems to have a twisted bit of reality however, if you think about it in a more literal sense; what they are actually saying is that there is no way out of the problem because “We Can’t Drill.”

It was sickening in a nauseating way to watch Illinois Congressman Rahm Emanuel, looking oh-so-serious, stand before the microphone and threaten the oil industry, “use it or lose it.”   According to Rep. Emanuel and most of his colleagues, oil companies already have leases to drill on 68 million acres domestically.  Sounds good right?  What they don’t tell you is that these are unexplored areas.  There are at this point, no known reserves on any of this acreage and that it will take years to decades to complete the exploration phase alone. 

For years, the Democrats have been telling us that “we are addicted to oil,” and we need to develop alternate sources of energy and wean ourselves off fossil fuels.  Wind and solar power are the answer they insist, except they fail to explain just where these windmills and photovoltaic generators would be constructed, the cost of implementation, the infrastructure requirements to connect them to the energy grid, and the expected output vs. demand from these “green power houses.”  When you ask them to explain how megawatt generators will meet gigawatt demand, they either change the subject or dismiss it as a temporary technical limitation. 

When you examine the actual results of all the utopian, environmental friendly solutions put forth to date, you realize a net negative impact to the problem.  At best, the amount of fossil fuel required to create an equal part of ethanol fuel is about one to one.  It is not rocket science to understand that there is no reduction in oil demand as a function of using ethanol to power our automobiles. 

When you add the tremendous rise in the price of corn to produce ethanol, the ripple effect that it has had on the price of food and other corn products and especially the serious effect it has had on nations that import corn, you quickly realize that “food for fuel” is not the answer.  While many nations and a growing number here in the United States are calling for a suspension of corn as a base for ethanol, reality is wasted on the Democrats.  It will take more than the dizzying whir of common sense and reality to “drill” common sense into these socialist icons. 

Word is beginning to emerge from geologists who explore for oil, that the combined resources, from crude oil, to shale oil, could equal or exceed the combined reserves of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Kuwait.  When you consider that potential, coupled with the dirge and mantra from the left of “end our dependence on foreign oil,” followed by a refusal to tap our abundance, one can only speculate as to that which serves as their logic.     

Lastly, there is the annoying matter of doing what is in the best interest of this nation and its people.  None of that seems to resonate with Democratic members of Congress; for them it is a calculation of power, control and politics. 

With prices at the pump approaching $ 4.25/gal for regular unleaded gas, and the cost of goods, services and food rising in unison as a function of transportation costs and higher energy prices for manufacturers, the Democrats demagogue, lay blame, and propose asinine solutions to the problem.   Raising taxes, punishing oil companies, suing OPEC, and pushing fuel costs even higher, while simultaneously slamming the door on the only realistic solution in the now time frame, would seem to indicate that the best interest of this nation is secondary to our liberal towers of intellect. 

As tempers rise along with the price of gas, the majority of the people now want to see our domestic oil reserves tapped.  This sentiment is even true of those who identify themselves as Democrats.  It would appear that the Dems have waddled squarely into the middle of a minefield with regard to their position on drilling for domestic oil.   If they step right, they step in it with their base.  If they step left, they will be stepped on by the American majority.  If they don’t get a clue, cut their losses and their ties with the radical far left and end the moratorium on domestic drilling, come November, this problem may well blow up in their faces.