Barack Obama attempts to rise above the trivial matters (i.e., chemistry and economics) that divide supporters and opponents of liquid coal technology and makes everyone unhappy with a nonsensical compromise position.
UPDATE: To say more, I think Obama had an opportunity here to just tell the truth -- it's pretty obvious he backed liquid coal because he was representing a coal-producing state even though it's not actually a good idea, and now he's flip-flopping to the correct position because as president you need to respond to matters of pressing national and global importance.
UPDATE II: The good news, though, is that an Obama presidency promises to sharply raise the value of pundits capable of making NBA analogies. For example, Obama may be like LeBron but Hillary Clinton is like the Spurs.
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Heads in the Sand
To be fair to Obama, this is a nearly impossible issue for a liberal Midwestern politician to deal with. The coal industry was hammered by the Clean Air Act, and while reducing air pollution obviously benefits everyone, the costs were primarily borne by the blue collar workers who lost their jobs and the rust belt communities that collapsed economically.
Ever since then, coal liquification has been pitched as the miracle solution to the coal industry's woes. People who live in coal country have been told a thousand times that this great new technology would make coal viable again as a clean-burning fuel that will provide jobs without hurting the environment. It was the win-win solution to everyone's problems and politicians on both sides of the aisle lined up to help.
And then all of a sudden, just as the process appears to be on the verge of becoming practical, environmental concerns shift 180 degrees and everyone is worried about carbon emissions instead of sulfur dioxide. And coal country gets screwed again.
A politician who wants to support his constituents in Carbondale, and simultaneously win the support of environmental groups, is in an impossible position. I suppose that Multiple Choice Mitt would have cheerfully tossed his prior commitments overboard and toed the interest group line. In which case, he would be roundly denounced as a flip-flopping sellout. Obama's "new kind of politics," based on a desire to transcend our political divisions, seems destined to produce nonsensical compromises that make no one happy.
But what the hell, in this particular case, should he have done differently?
Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 25, 2007 12:22 PM