Bankrupting the coal industry

Last night I wrote about the Obama recording in which he threatened to bankrupt the coal industry. This morning the campaign says that the Republicans are lying…well, not that they lied about the actual statement, or any of Obama’s intentions…but they’re lying. CBS has the whole statement from the Obama campaign along with the entire transcript. After reading it, I still came away with the same conclusions – Obama wants to tax the coal industry to death.

The response from the Obama campaign is what one might expect;

Obama’s Campaign blames the McCain Campaign for leaking what they call, a small portion of a long interview, out to the public just two days before the election.

” When there’s nothing positive to talk about, you have to resort to negative attacks and distortions,” said Andrea Mead, Obama Campaign Spokesperson.

Obama’s camp says the point Obama is making is that we need to transition from coal burning power plants built with old technology, to plants built with advanced technologies. That way, he says, we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Again, it’s a “negative attack” to circulate Obama speaking his own words and calling for the death of a legal and beneficial industry. The San Francisco Chronicle rides to Obama’s defense, and their own, calling Sarah Palin’s remarks about the recording and and the Chronicle’s camouflaging of the recording “Palin’s reckless desperation“;

First of all, that audiotape is not “just now surfacing.” It has been available for the world to hear – and was heavily promoted by us – ever since our Jan. 17 editorial board meeting with Obama. Other campaigns, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s and Sen. John McCain’s, had ample opportunity to review Obama’s remarks about coal, and challenge him on them before the closing days of the general election. None did.

I’m pretty sure we would have heard something about Obama’s plan to bankrupt the coal industry if the Chronicle had promoted that part of the interview as they say. Just having an interview available isn’t a real defense when you’re talking about information that could’ve cost Obama the primary. I’m sure this isn’t going to sit well with those coal state voters that voted for Clinton in the primaries.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Liberals suck, Politics