Obama finally "Right"

When I first saw the headline, "Obama expands offshore drilling" last week, I said to myself, "this has got to be an April Fools joke!"

But it wasn't. Sure enough, in one fell swoop, the president has apparently reversed decades of so-called national energy policy by opening up vast areas of "East Coast waters and other protected areas in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico to drilling...widening the politically explosive hunt for more homegrown oil and gas."

Not I said "apparently." The details of this seemingly seismic shift in national energy and national security remain to be sorted out. Nevertheless, it marks a bold initiative that could gradually move our oil addicted nation towards some degree of oil independence. If it strengthens our economy and our national security, that would of course be a good thing.

President Obama's announcement, made in a speech at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, drew immediate wrath from militant environmentalists supporters, who perceive him as backpedaling on an issue near and dear to their hearts. For example, his "support for exploratory drilling in the Chuckchi and Beaufort seas north of Alaska" outraged the Center for Biological Diversity.

Calling it a "threat to polar bears," the organization's spokesperson bitterly complained this this is "Short of sending Sarah Palin back to Alaska to personally club polar bears to death, The Obama Administration could not have come up with a more efficient extinction plan for the polar bear." Hyperbole aside, that was a predictable response, given the source.

Meanwhile, President Obama's proposed drilling plan received some support from leading Republicans. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said, "It was a step in the right direction." Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of S.C., who has been a critical negotiator with the White House on national energy policy, said he listened "with great interest" to what the president had to say.

I'm no energy expert...but then again, neither is President Obama. Still, I think his stab at a new oil strategy has some merit. Sure, his detractors across the political and ideological spectrum will pummel him for being "politically motivated." They'll say he has one eye on the congressional elections this year and the other on the presidential election of 2012.

What else is new? Show me a politician who is not politically motivated, and I'll show you an oxymoron. If political motivation can steer us toward a more viable national energy policy that strengthens our overall national security, then hell, drill on.