McCain at Townhall Meeting: "I'd be more than happy to examine [my ANWR position] again"

DrewM. thinks that McCain just winked at him, all sexy-like.

I'll bet he'd be happy to reconsider it. To win this election against a money-raising juggernaut, he's going to have to have one or two issues the public actually favors him on.

That would be helpful, I think.

Again, this isn't a true flip-flop, as the circumstances since he first announced his policy (which was also stupid at the time, but not suicidally so) have dramatically changed.

The ANWR moratorium was only mildly retarded at $50 per barrel oil. It's at $140 per oil it becomes toenail-eating profoundly retarded.

To mitigate the flip-flop charge, I'd just steal a page from Barack Obama and either say a "heroic veteran" asked McCain to wear a Drill Now pin at a rally and that changed his mind, and/or say he might have engaged in some "overheated rhetoric" on the campaign trail about a permafrost ice-fen being functionally indistinguishable from the Grand Canyon.

After Cooling Off... This may mean absolutely nothing. McCain's maverickeyness is supposed to mean he's willing to carefully examine (and reexamine) just about any issue -- although, of course, maverickeyness usually means the precise opposite in practice.

So he may be -- and probably is -- just feigning having an open mind, and letting facts and circumstances guide his judgment more than moral vanity.

If that's the case, I wish him well in his post-election retirement. Perhaps President Barack Obama will be nice enough to ask his opinion on how to most speedily condemn Iraq to Al Qaeda, al-Sadr, and Iran.

Price Drop? I have no idea if the market is already taking this potential shift into account, and I actually feel rather stupid and reckless for even suggesting it is.

But, for what it's worth, future oil contracts (which evil speculators buy) are down.

Whoops: There are less-speculative reasons more likely driving the price-drop:

Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total SA are getting ready to formally announce historic contracts to return to Iraq some 36 years after the country's government took control of its giant oil reserves, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

The oil majors, and a host of smaller companies, are in talks with Iraq's oil ministry for unusual no-bid contracts to service the war-torn country's largest fields, said the newspaper, citing ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

Beating out offers from 40 other companies in Russia, China and India, the Western majors will announce by the end of the month contract agreement to run for one to two years, some five years after the U.S. military toppled Saddam Hussein.

FoxNews (broadcast) says the deals could up Iraqi oil production 500,000 barrels per day, "in a hurry," though they didn't say what "in a hurry" means in this context.

For comprison, ANWR will deliver a minimum of a million barrels a day.

Another Country Heard From: Slublog thinks it's China's decision to raise oil prices (that is, subsidize the costs by a lesser amount) that is chiefly responsible for the price drop.

That's a good theory too. In fact, it seems to be the correct one.

But all these theories are based on the same principle: More oil = lower prices. (In China's case it's not more actual oil, but the Chinese using less oil because now it's costlier, which results, of course, in there being more oil for everyone else.)

Have You Guys Heard of this New Theory of Supply and Demand?

Jack Straw:

Yep, and demand is dropping here in the states. Driven miles in the US hit a 5 year low last month.

Why, it's almost as if some imaginary force is putting pressure on pricing as demand eases. I wonder what would happen if we announced an increase in supply?

I gotta sit down. I feel lightheaded.

XBradTC:

It's almost like a hand... an invisible hand.... fortunately, the Dems will nationalize our refineries to control the production of gasoline so that durn oppressing invisible hand will go away.

posted by Ace at 02:24 PM

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