Arguing against these crazy myths needs to be accompanied by an explanation that everybody can understand about why the myths exist.

The Republicans aren't shy about fabricating crazy motives for leftist realism that recognizes the limits inherent in a diminishing supply of petroleum worldwide - http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=205272 - :

Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) says it has not escaped Democrats what the cost of gasoline and loss of jobs are doing to the country.

"This is their agenda," Bachmann states bluntly. "I know it is hard to believe, it's hard to fathom -- but this is 'mission accomplished' for them," she asserts. "They want Americans to take transit and move to the inner cities. They want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, [and] take light rail to their government jobs. That's their vision for America."

Bachmann predicts gasoline will rise above $5 a gallon if Barack Obama is elected president.

Shame on her!

So - aside from trying to scare people away from Dems and Obama, what other interests are served by pretending that the world is an ever-flowing font of clean, cheap oil just begging to exploit?

This "right-wing noise machine" gets a great deal of funding from the oil industry. While the oil industry has been enjoying profits the likes of which have no historical precedence in human history, they always want more.

Handing ANWR over to an oil company for exploration and extraction is a government giveaway of the highest order to whatever oil company/companies win the concession. Even after investing billions in the physical infrastructure in ANWR to support the enterprise, the oil they bring to market will reap new untold profit. ANWR is just another cookie jar for the oil industry to get its hands on.

The same goes for offshore drilling. As a nation we decided that we didn't want oil drilling to occur off the vast majority of our coastline. (The major exception to this is the non-Florida coasts along the Gulf of Mexico). Every concession awarded to "big oil" to drill somewhere new off the coast of the United States is a winning proposition.

Through their lobbyists and their funding of conservative think-tanks and media, the oil industry is attempting to dupe the American people into handing them MORE.

Your average man-on-the-street Republican should be able to understand a corporate "giveaway" when confronted with one. Explain it to them.

Nobody did a better job articulating that there'll never be any need to change our American habits of consumption, transportation, energy use and all of the rest than George H.W. "41" Bush when he declared:

"The American Way of Life is Not Negotiable"

Thomas Schaller:

I think that you're spot-on about everything the Gore appearance means for the convention and the Obama campaign, but the idea that including Gore is a rebuke to the Clintons seems to be way off. Any chance we can get you to elaborate as to your thoughts behind the idea that this is a rebuke to the Clintons?

Some thoughts:

Who might be behind the engineering of a rebuke to the Clintons? Obama's camp? The DNC? Both? For what reasons?

For a majority of the party, Bill Clinton, in spite of his many minor failings, is still a beloved ex-President. Who wants to slap his wrist at this stage of the game - and why?

Hillary was just barely short of having a majority of the electorate in her corner. It's a matter of record and fact that in terms of numbers she performed nearly as well as Obama. Does she have ex-supporters who don't think she tried hard enough and therefore wish to rebuke her? That doesn't compute. I don't think *anybody* tried as hard as Hillary this time around - and ultimately she was gracious in defeat and was subsequently forgiven any bridges she may have almost burned.

I think they're having Al Gore speak because in his post-vice-Presidential and Presidential candidate role as activist and communicator for a cause that is dear to Dems he's become somewhat of a rock star.

I'm personally solidly in Obama's camp and there's nothing that could happen to make me switch my vote from Obama to McCain between now and November. I have had close to ZERO interest in listening to ANYBODY speak at the convention.

Now that Al Gore will be speaking, I'll tune in for that speech. Once I've been drawn in to listen to Al I may get drawn in to watching some more of the convention.

Getting Al Gore on board for the convention is a great idea.

I'll bet I'm not the first commenter to point that out!

Thanks for this one, Andrew.

The pre-speech sniping from our own side regarding the Greek columns was unnecessarily negative and turned out to be unfounded. Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned there somewhere.

Sarah Palin is the former "mayor of an Alaskan fishing village."

Her husband is a "champion dog-sled racer."

She was the mayor of an Alaskan fishing village?

Crawling up the ass of a commercial fisherman with a microscope may not be pretty.

Thanks!

I'm not a hunter, but I grew up with guns and are very familiar with them (although I've chosen not to own or use them as an adult).

I'm amazed at the idea that anybody using a hand-held rifle, firing it from a moving airplane could possibly hit a running wolf. This seems near impossible to me.

Am I missing something? Are skilled hunters in Alaska so well-practiced with this technique that accomplishing this is no problem whatsoever for them?

Amazing.

No shame:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYQAv2HnuCQ