Carol Browner behind Interior moratorium lie?

Back in June reports came out suggesting that Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar had lied in a report on the Gulf Coast spill by claiming that a panel of outside exports had peer-reviewed the report’s conclusions, which included a job-killing moratorium on offshore drilling.  After this came out, the Interior Secretary had to retract and disavow any nefarious intent on the administration’s behalf; and you could have believed as much of that disavowal as you liked.  Given that this White House purely hates offshore drilling and jumped at the chance to reverse course on the topic, it was reasonable enough not to believe a word of it.

Well, it’s now confirmed, via an Inspector General’s investigation, that the language in question was actually changed by a staffer to White House energy adviser Carol Browner.  This makes sense; Browner is a notorious Greenie who took advantage of the Gulf Coast oil spill to do a little empire building.  That the report just happened to get manipulated in such a way as to make it appear that the industry consensus supported an immediate moratorium on offshore drilling, and that it just happened to be manipulated by the office of the one staffer whose agenda would be advanced by a moratorium, is being treated as a… coincidence, apparently.  You see, nobody’s admitting any wrongdoing, which is expected to be treated as evidence that there wasn’t any.  And you can believe as much of that as you like, too.

Meanwhile, one Congressman estimated that we lost 12,000 jobs and about 1.8 billion dollars in revenue in the Gulf.  But Browner got the President’s Blackberry number, so: even trade, right?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Olbermann spanked for making faces at Beck?

Just in case: that’s RedState dot COM, Keith.  Have you noticed that nobody in the media ever updates their links?

Here’s the (very entertaining) timeline:

  • Thursday, September 3rd, 11:18 PM: Glenn Beck calls for his Twitter followers to send him information on “CASS SUNSTEIN, MARK LLOYD AND CAROL BROWNER” (all caps in the original, which is honestly a bit much).
  • Friday, September 4th, 3:36 PM: Dave Weigel reports on all of this.
  • Sunday, September 6th, 12:05 AM: It becoming clear that Van Jones is a crazy 9/11 Troofer and a generally not-particularly-mainstream fellow, he resigns as Green Jobs Czar (via AoSHQ).
  • Sunday, September 6th, 10:14 AM: Keith Olbermann declares a Crusade against Glenn Beck (via Verum Serum).  This is to be an epic war of battle between Olbermann and Beck, yadda yadda.
  • Tuesday, September 8th, 8:21 AM: Media Decoder hesitantly points out that media-on-media wars may not be the smartest things in the world; and is treated to a righteous, stylized response from Olbermann himself.
  • Tuesday, September 8th, 8:22 AM to 9:46 AM (time indeterminate): Somebody in either MSNBC or GE notices that Olbermann is calling for a Crusade.
  • Tuesday, September 8th, 9:47 AM: Olbermann calls off the Crusade (via Newsbusters & Instapundit).

There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever that GE sent Olbermann was off to bed without his binky.  Personally, I’d have enforced a timeout and Olbermann being made to write out ten things that he liked about Glenn Beck, but that’s just because I’m a dad now.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Meet Carol Browner, Energy Czar.

Via Ed Morrissey, witness her full and total awareness of the cap-and-trade monstrosity that her political party is threatening to unleash upon the world:

“I’ve read major portions of it, absolutely.”

You know, this is one of those times that I almost feel sorry for hyper-partisan Democrats. Can you imagine having to go through life having to pretend that this administration has any idea what it’s doing?

Moe Lane

PS: Actually, I would accept the “The executive branch hasn’t had an opportunity to read what the legislative branch has cobbled together yet…” excuse. Assuming, of course, that it’s immediately followed by “…which is why the President’s going to veto the bill and send it back to the House so that they can do a competent job this time.”

Until then… well. I voted for the other guy.

Crossposted to RedState.