[div class="text-html" lang="x-western"] Sarah Palin: Energy Expert
Sarah Palin today in the Washington Post:
"I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage."
[a href="vny!://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WykvUyUuLo&eurl=vny!%3A%2F%2Fthinkprogress%2Eorg%2F&feature=player_emb%20edded" target="_blank"]Sarah Palin during the presidential campaign.[/a]
"A cap-and-trade policy will send a signal that will be heard and welcomed all across the American economy, and the highest rewards will go to those who make the smartest, safest, most responsible choices."
John McCain introduced her as "one of America's greatest energy experts," CNBC's Maria Bartiromo said "I think the biggest value she brings to the ticket is her expertise in energy," and Haley Barbour called her a "bonafide energy expert." Palin's petro-knowledge has become a given on the right.
What's the source of this deep knowledge? It doesn't come from Palin's multi-school odyssey from which she eventually earned a BS in communications. It doesn't come from her experience rattling off scores as a sportscaster. It doesn't come from overseeing ice rink construction in Wasilla. Nope, her energy expertise comes from being appointed to an oil and gas commission, a job she quit after less than a year.
There are people who have worked in this field for decades. People who have spent their lives studying the complex issues of energy production and utilization. People who experimented, investigated, sacrificed, and sweated to make discoveries about energy. There are actually people who didn't become "experts" by being handed a $122K / year appointment in an area they knew nothing about, spend a few months talking about their colleagues to the press, then quit when that press started to ask a few questions. [/div]
