Palin’s Energy Expertise
On Meet The Press today, Tom Brokaw pressed Rudy Giuliani on John McCain’s ludicrous assertion that Sarah Palin is the foremost energy expert in the country:
NBC MAINE: What experience does she have in the field of national security?
MCCAIN: Energy. She knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.
BROKAW: More about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America? More about solar, more about wind, more about geothermal than the MIT scientists who are working on this initiative? Boone Pickens? Al Gore? Do you think she knows more than any of those people do?
GIULIANI: I think John was referring to elected officials. He would not be referring to Boone Pickens and certainly wouldn’t be referring to nuclear scientists and people like that. I think he was talking about politicians and probably, in particular, the people involved in the race.
How Rudy got the idea that we should construe “anyone else in the United States of America” as secretly meaning “anyone else currently nominated by a major political party for President or Vice President” is a bit beyond me. But while McCain may not know much about honesty, and Rudy may not know much about logic, Palin also doesn’t know much about energy policy. Indeed, she doesn’t even understand energy production in Alaska. Watch in amazement as she argues that her state provides 20 percent of America’s energy:
As Matt Corley observes the correct answer is 3.5 percent. Basically, if you double Palin’s estimate and then double it again you’re . . . still wrong. Also if you assume that by “energy” Palin in fact just meant “oil” then she’s . . . still wrong since Alaska in fact produces about 14 percent of America’s oil.
She’s someone who knows how to turn the sky-high revenues generated by being an oil producing region at a time of high oil prices into political popularity, but not someone who knows anything about energy policy or even, it seems, oil markets.
41 Responses to “Palin’s Energy Expertise”
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September 14th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I wonder if Palin knows how oil is formed. She seems to be a creationist, so I wonder if she thinks that oil is created by the dinosaurs who died a couple thousand years ago. I don’t think these are unfair questions for our nation’s foremost energy expert.
September 14th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Basically, if you double Palin’s estimate and then double it again, aren’t you at 80%? Which she probably should have gone with, since it sounds better and her audience will believe anything she says.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
The amazing thing is this: the elders of the Republican Party are perfectly hunky-dory with letting La Dim Bulb be a heartbeat from the presidency. Couldn’t be more pleased, in fact. Many-to-most probably wish she were at the top of the ticket.
The Republic deserves to fail.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
to which Brokaw could have retorted more than the members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
But then Giuliani thought Bernie Kerik was qualified to be head of Homeland Security.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Jeff Davis,
It’s only a matter of time before someone says on camera that they’re praying for Old Man McCain’s death so Palin can take over.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
She’s so unskilled and unready that I cannot help but think she is somehow not the point. She is a diversion for something else, most probably short term news cycle domination and running the clock down while we waste time pointing out how ridiculous this is. She’s so clearly just BS’ing that that is somehow good enough for what McCain needs her for. The problem with this clock strategy is that there is too much time left for it to be effective. Obama still has time for too many plays for it to be time for McCain to run the clock down without actually trying to score himself.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
We’re doomed.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Matt, I think you are probably the person best positioned to publicize the fact that the McCain campaign (especially after Karl Rove’s attack on fact-check organizations today) has gone all-in on the same old Bush/Rove/Foucault/Derrida campaign tactics that we’ve seen, in less extreme forms, from the Republican party for so long…
September 14th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Hey, I keep telling you, Matt – she was at the Arctic Energy Summit last year where she got to listen to the president of Iceland going on about geothermal and hydroelectric energy http://gov.state.ak.us/large_photo.php?id=72 Now that’s some meeting foreign heads of state and talking about energy policy we can believe in. Or, you know, maybe not, but there you go.
September 14th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Yeah, Haukur, one would think she wouldn’t admit she hasn’t met any foreign heads of state since there’s actually a *picture* of her with one. I guess she…forgot? Her trainers couldn’t find the picture?
September 14th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
I think he was talking about politicians and probably, in particular, the people involved in the race.
Who else wouldn’t realize that “anyone else in the United States of America” = one of 4 candidates on the two major parties’ tickets?
I mean seriously, wouldn’t it just be more credible to say that she had her fingers crossed?
September 14th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Palin’s a complete dolt when it comes to energy policy. In stark contrast, let it be noted, to more typical U.S. pols, what with their degrees in engineering, physics, and thermodynamics, their vast field experience in coal mines, oil fields, etc, and of course their lucrative ties to the energy industry. Collectively, the perfect starting points from which to craft the nation’s energy policies.
September 14th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
To be unreasonably charitable she almost certainly was supposed to put the word domestic in there. Like the flash cards she was working with probably said domestic and she forgot that part. If she were generally less terrible I would assume that she misspoke but she isn’t. She got her talking point wrong but I don’t think she just got the number from nowhere.
September 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Take them at their word: Palin knows more than anybody in the US about energy. She’s an bone fide expert — our best!
And bring her before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee.
Subpoena her if necessary. Our future depends, no, our national survival depends upon getting vital information out of that woman’s head NOW!
Use enhanced interrogation techniques if necessary. Rendition to D.C.
I don’t care how you do it, just get that info!
The clock is ticking!
September 14th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
By the way, it isn’t hard to reconstruct what was going on in McCain’s mind if you listen to the whole interview. Before this particular exchange, McCain had already floated the idea that Palin’s nominal expertise in energy issues was a national security credential. So when pressed on the general point of her lacking any real national security credentials, he panicked and upgraded her to America’s foremost energy expert.
What this shows is that on some level, McCain does in fact know when his talking points are pretty crappy, and he is prone to panick when pressed. That is probably something the Obama Campaign is making notes of in preparation for the debates.
September 14th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
She’s someone who knows how to turn the sky-high revenues… into political popularity…
True, although daily interactions with oil industry figures and state economists who specialize in petroleum has given Palin some level of expertise. She knows that oil is sold by the barrel, for example, and natural gas by the billions of cubic feet.
That said, is she really more of an energy expert — even among elected officials, per Giuliani — than, say, Gov. Bill Richardson? Or even Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a member of the aforementioned Energy & Natural Resources Committee?
September 14th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
if you assume that by “energy” Palin in fact just meant “oil” then she’s . . . still wrong since Alaska in fact produces about 14 percent of America’s oil
14 = 20, within 3 db. She must be an engineer. Who’d have thunk?
September 14th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Hyperbole from a politician! I’m shocked! Shocked!
September 14th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
She says “US domestic supply” of energy. Does that maybe mean the percentage of energy produced in the US and used in the US? If so, her numbers would be higher.
September 14th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
McCain proposes building 45 new nuclear power plants if he’s elected president.
Question: what experience does Mrs Palin have with nuclear power considering that Alaska has no
commercial nuclear power plants?
September 14th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I think it’s more interesting that she equates energy production with oil & gas than that her figure is so far off. Palin is arguably the country’s greatest energy expert–if you are still living in the 20th century. As someone to lead us into the future, she’s about as credible as Dick Cheney’s energy task force.
September 14th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I think it is a mistake to make things like this talking points.
Clearly, any reasonable person knows that McCain doesn’t really think Palin is some super genius who knows more than physicists. He clearly meant something fairly vague and conventional like, “she probably knows more about Alaskan oil policy than any other politician in that I’ve met.”
September 14th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Whoops – my math was off on the Alaska share of Total US Natural Gas production – it’s 2.20
And coal production is 2006 (latest year available) – not 2007
September 14th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Ethel, there’s abundant natural gas in Alaska, which generally accompanies oil. The reason production is low is that there’s no pipeline to move it to population centers. Gov. Palin has negotiated such a pipeline on far more attractive terms to the people of Alaska than the previous governor, who was in the pocket of the oil companies.
September 14th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
I wonder if Palin knows how oil is formed.
That’s an interesting one. She might well be one of those people who thinks that the earth has a creamy hydrocarbon core. Her father was a public school science teacher, so you have to wonder whether her ’saving’ just allows her a degree of doublethink.
September 14th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
When the Republic fails, how do you get to be Emperor?
September 14th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Bush is a plain spoken man and his sentences are usually not hard to understand. But, the White House spokespeople are always out telling us that the plain meaning of his words is not important and what he really mean to say was … whatever.
Similarly, McCain is not difficult to understand here. Clearly, he’s exaggerating for effect and clearly he is comparing policy experience rather than scientific knowledge. But, I still think the clear suggestion is that Palin knows more about energy policy than Samuel Bodman, Stephen Johnson, and other administration officials who handle energy concerns on a day to day basis, not to mention McCain himself, Obama, and Biden.
I guess this will be chalked up as another one of his “jokes”. She’s qualified to do the job. Just kidding!
September 14th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
As Matt Corley observes the correct answer is 3.5 percent. . . Also if you assume that by “energy” Palin in fact just meant “oil” then she’s . . . still wrong since Alaska in fact produces about 14 percent of America’s oil.
What a witch.
September 14th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
45 nuclear plants. Where does McCain propose finding non-petroleum energy companies with that much capital? (And why would petroleum energy companies invest their profits in 45 nuclear plants?) Does McCain have any idea how much a new nuclear plant would cost? I’m not afraid of nuclear energy. I much prefer nuclear energy over coal. But you just can’t summon capital by snapping your fingers. And you really can’t summon the necessary expertise even if you had the money at the ready like Scrooge McDuck. (Maybe Sarah Palin can hire some high school buddies to run the new plants! No experience required!)
September 14th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Hey, would it be ungallant to point out that I posted this very point over at DKos as well as my personal blog 2 days ago?
I also emailed factcheck.org.
Not that I’m complaining about this getting much wider play.
As Stephen Colbert would say: You’re welcome.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Mark. S. made a good point. If Palin is really a creationist, she believes that the world was created a few thousand years ago. She probably believes that oil is still being created today, as do many other creationists.
Of course in the real world, oil is a fossil fuel created millions of years ago, there is only so much of it, and at some point it will either run out or we will have used all of the oil that can be obtained cheaply. I’m sure Palin doesn’t know this, so she actually has less energy expertise than most Americans.
September 15th, 2008 at 2:17 am
Ethel, there’s abundant natural gas in Alaska, which generally accompanies oil. The reason production is low is that there’s no pipeline to move it to population centers. Gov. Palin has negotiated such a pipeline on far more attractive terms to the people of Alaska than the previous governor, who was in the pocket of the oil companies.
Feh – if we want to talk about future production there’s tons of coal and oil shale in other states also – the fact of the matter is that Palin saying that Alaska TODAY supplies 20% of domestic production. If you need to contort and twist things around, and maybe she said something else than what she actually said in order to make her point for her, then you are living in a dreamland and your point is worthless. Let’s stick with reality please.
September 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Peddling oil profits into popularity, bizarre claims in speeches, using the power of the state to attack her enemies … My God! She’s Hugo Chavez!
September 15th, 2008 at 10:34 am
If we are going to assign expertise in energy to politicians based on the production of states they govern or represent, then Senator Obama must also be a great expert on energy as Illinois is a major coal and ethanol producing state.
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