Leo Gerard, the (Canadian) president of the United Steelworkers union? (Via Obama spokesflack @BenLaBolt)
Mr. Obama is committed to protecting clean air and clean water for our families while also helping the coal industry.
Or would it be… actually, hold on a second. WHO ASKED foreign-born and foreign-national union leader Gerard his opinion on the 2012 American Presidential election? WHY did the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette avoid noting that Mr. Gerard is not an American citizen? And why is an official campaign surrogate like Ben LaBolt uncritically propagate an article where a FOREIGNER went on to directly attack an American politician? Particularly since said foreigner had previously called for a resistance movement in the United States AND was involved in the infamous 1999 WTO riots in Seattle? Come right down to it, is there a single functional adult and competent political operative ANYWHERE in Obama for America? At all?
OK. Mini-rant over.
Anyway, who are we supposed to believe on American coal development: the Canadian Leo Gerard? Or the American President Barack Obama, and the American Vice President Joe Biden?
For those without video access: it’s showing the current President telling a friendly audience that his plan for stopping new coal plants is to make it too expensive for them to be built; and the current Vice President telling an unfriendly audience that there’s never going to be another coal plant built in the United States. Call me provincial or even jingoistic, but I think that when it comes to domestic coal production I’m more ready to believe the defiant hostility of a couple Americans over the oily apologetics of a foreigner.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: If you’re wondering what a steelworkers union president knows about coal production, well, I’m sure that the man reads newspapers.
PPS: Transcript of the ad:
Text: The Obama-Biden Attacks on American Coal Energy Jobs
Audio: “We’re not supporting clean coal. No coal plants here in America.”
Text: Vice President Biden 2008, “No coal plants here in America,” Maumee, OH, 9/17/08
Audio: “So if somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can. It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted”
Text: President Obama 2008, promised to bankrupt the American coal industry, interview with San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board, 1/17/08
Audio: -“Which would you honestly say is more likely to contribute to the death of your average American: a terrorist strike, or high fructose corn syrup and air that has too much coal in it?”
-“Air that has too much coal in it, corn syrup next, then a terrorist attack”Text: Vice President Biden 2008, ranked coal as bigger threat than a terrorist attack, Slate/Yahoo/Huffington Post Presidential Forum, 9/13/07
Text: Obama-Biden on Energy: Fewer Ohio Jobs, Higher Energy Costs
There may never be another coal plant built in the US because of fracking. Not that I’m anti-coal, but thank God for Shale Nat. Gas & oil.
“Come right down to it, is there a single functional adult and competent political operative ANYWHERE in Obama for America?”
No. And that is because they never get out of their bubble. They ran all of the blue dogs out of the party and they never go to places where people think differently. So, they are pretty much gauranteed to make these sort of mistakes.