Miracle of the algae

If Americans aren’t sold on electric cars as the solution to our energy problems, I’m pretty sure that they won’t fall for pond scum (algae). Yet this is part of what President Obama had on offer this past Thursday when he spoke at the University of Miami. The White House text and video of the speech are here.

The algae angle would have earned a Republican president hoots of derision and charges of detachment from the real America in the spirit of the mythical story of George Bush’s wonderment at supermarket scanners. The story of Bush’s wonderment, it cannot be stated too often, was fabricated by the New York Times. By contrast, Obama’s support for the transubstantiation of pond scum is in the text of his big energy speech. (The Times mentioned it in the third-to-the-last paragraph of Mark Landler’s story.)

I wouldn’t even have heard about Obama’s brainstorm had it not been for Bret Baier’s serving it up for discussion by the Fox News Special Report panel. Charles Krauthammer delivered the derision that would have permeated page-one news stories throughout the land if Obama were not our Lord and savior in the eyes of the mainstream media.

As it is, I have only seen the Examiner’s Joel Gehrke and IBD’s Andrew Malcolm joining the pile-on with Dr. Krauthammer. Malcolm seems to have been inspired by Obama’s speech. He used it to improvise on a few themes:

It was, of course, a phony event, an early afternoon official presidential visit tacked on to cover three political fundraisers that evening, two in Miami and one in Orlando, raking in around $4 million. (At the same time Michelle Obama collected more money from two Midwestern fundraisers and Biden did another in New England.)

If the president can claim he’s doing some “official” work on these trips, then his campaign need reimburse less for travel on a government plane. (And don’t worry, Obama did get to watch the Knicks-Heat game on satellite TV in flight.)
This president, of course, is never not campaigning. It’s easier than governing and better for the ego. So, his 23 minute “official” speech was really political. He bashed the oil companies for getting subsidies. “Preach it, Mr. President!” yelled one audience plant.

Obama said his new motor vehicle fuel standard regulations were so tough that someday they would somehow enable American families to save $8,000 at the pump “over time.” [Hmmmm. Have current gas prices been factored into the propaganda? That might be $16,000 by now, and $30,000 or $40,000 in another five years.]

He said the price of gas was soaring because of turmoil in the Mideast (hence, clearly not his fault). He sympathized with average Americans facing soaring fuel prices and said he’d even just read a letter from one who might have to quit their job.

Obama criticized Republicans for making energy prices a political issue and mocked what he said were their calls for a three-point energy plan: Drill, drill and drill. Because, he said, domestic reserves could never fill all of the country’s energy needs. Which no one had suggested until he did.

The president praised his drive for reliance on renewable sources of energy, pioneering work on better car batteries, a new nuclear plant.

He forgot to mention the Solyndra solar scandal and the $545 million blown on the company of his fundraiser, but said great progress is being made in alternative energy sources.

As evidence, Obama cited the Miami-Dade Museum which, he said, has a windmill that by itself on a typical day can generate up to 10% of the energy needs of one local home. (The president’s math would seem to suggest the need for about 10 wind turbines to power every house, which could make for crowded neighborhoods.)

Obama didn’t have time to go into his killing of the Pipestone XL pipeline from Canada that would have saved the United States from buying 700,000 barrles of oil per day from unfriendly regimes in turbulent distant areas.

Well, as they say, read the whole thing. The funny thing is that Malcolm doesn’t look like a heretic. About him, however, we can say this: he is not saved.

Professor S. Fred Singer’s American Thinker column “Obama skins the cat” places this story in its larger context. Please check it out.

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