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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: LindyBill who wrote (100275)	2/13/2005 9:14:13 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) of 793656

The Friedman column was so bad I didn't post it. Instapundit - I DON'T BLOG MUCH on energy policy, leaving that to people like Lynn Kiesling. But a reader asks what I think about this column by Tom Friedman today. Excerpt: nytimes.com As a geo-green, I believe that combining environmentalism and geopolitics is the most moral and realistic strategy the U.S. could pursue today. Imagine if President Bush used his bully pulpit and political capital to focus the nation on sharply lowering energy consumption and embracing a gasoline tax. What would that buy? It would buy reform in some of the worst regimes in the world, from Tehran to Moscow. It would reduce the chances that the U.S. and China are going to have a global struggle over oil - which is where we are heading. This is all fine with me -- I'd like to see big honking nuclear plants (possibly of the much-touted pebble-bed design) producing hydrogen to run clean cars. On the other hand, Friedman's own policy proposals are a bit less ambitious, involving a gas tax plus a bit of what looks like cultural warfare: I would like to see every campus in America demand that its board of trustees disinvest from every U.S. auto company until they improve their mileage standards. Every college town needs to declare itself a "Hummer-free zone." You want to drive a gas-guzzling Humvee? Go to Iraq, not our campus. And an idea from my wife, Ann: free parking anywhere in America for anyone driving a hybrid car. This sort of moralistic-but-ineffective posturing -- based more on hatred of SUVs and their owners than anything else -- is the 21st Century equivalent of Jimmy Carter's cardigan, and it's why most Americans roll their eyes when people say the words "energy policy." If Friedman wants to make a difference on this subject, he needs to look at technology -- and at what people actually want and will tolerate -- and try to put the two together. The "energy policy" discussion on The West Wing was better than this. OK, except maybe for the free-parking idea, which is actually not bad in a small-scale Clinton-initiative kind of way.

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