Political Diary - WSJ.com
"Mr. Reid, who was evidently fed up with questions about drilling, suddenly exclaimed: 'Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it's ruining the world. We've got to stop using fossil fuel.'
Mr. Reid's rant quickly became the No. 1 video on the Internet, approaching a half-million views. The pollster Rasmussen even took the unusual step of conducting a survey to see how many Americans agreed with the Nevadan's view. Let's just say he didn't win a majority.
But give Mr. Reid marks for honesty. To many liberal Democrats, cheap fossil fuels are the root cause of excessive materialism, suburban sprawl, a despoiled environment – and they've been demanding for decades that government raise the price of energy to discourage Americans from driving big cars and living in large, well-heated homes. Democrats may never have had the political courage to impose such towering European-style gasoline taxes directly, but Mr. Reid's policy diatribe at least explains why Democrats have found it so easy to sit on their hands rather than take steps to increase domestic supply and bring down $4 gasoline."
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