Plutonium Page has posted to Daily Kos a diary which helps to expose some important background information about T. Boone Pickens and his “plan” that supposedly will liberate us from foreign oil.
T. Boone Pickens’ Fancy Sales Pitch
Devilstower and I just went to a talk here at the DNC featuring T. Boone Pickens. Everyone was under the impression that the event would involve an actual discussion (as in, a Q & A session, like nearly all of the other Big Tent special topic sessions). We had a really energetic live blog thread going, where all of you were submitting questions.
Sorry, guys. Apparently, the whole thing was just a sales pitch. T. Boone hightailed it out of there before anyone could even raise their hand.
I’ll post some excerpts below, but really, go to the original, where you can also read the comments, which are just as illuminating.
Maybe he was afraid we’d ask questions like:
In 2004, you helped pay for the Swift Boat ads, along with fellow billionaire Harold Simmons, who’s funding the Ayres attack ads this cycle. If you’re willing to tolerate, and even encourage, that level of dishonesty in political discourse, why should we trust you on any subject?
(From Devilstower)
I wanted to ask him:
Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma is well known for saying that global warming is the “greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” and is one of the most outspoken climate change science deniers around, as well as being joined at the hip with the oil companies.
In your presentation today, you specifically said that you “believe global warming is real”.
However, you have heavily funded James Inhofe’s campaign. How do you reconcile your support for Inhofe with your promotion of renewable energy programs?
From an energy expert acquaintance via email:
Can you please explain why people should take your plan seriously when, for example, you do not include any energy efficiency measures within it?
For a real and honest debate on the topic of energy policy, see the liveblogging thread.
On which Devilstower summed up the Pickens Plan with this update:
Update [2008-8-27 15:7:47 by Devilstower]: And T. Boone heads for the door without taking a single question. Which makes the whole presentation worth about as much as day old spit.