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Carter: What I have to say to you now about energy is simple and vitally important.Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade — a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day.

Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas. I’m announcing tonight that for 1979 and 1980, I will forbid the entry into this country of one drop of foreign oil more than these goals allow. These quotas will ensure a reduction in imports even below the ambitious levels we set at the recent Tokyo summit.

Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel — from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun.

I propose the creation of an energy security corporation to lead this effort to replace 2-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day by 1990. The corporation I will issue up to $5 billion in energy bonds, and I especially want them to be in small denominations so that average Americans can invest directly in America’s energy security.

Just as a similar synthetic rubber corporation helped us win World War II, so will we mobilize American determination and ability to win the energy war. Moreover, I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.

These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay. It will be money well spent. Unlike the billions of dollars that we ship to foreign countries to pay for foreign oil, these funds will be paid by Americans to Americans. These funds will go to fight, not to increase, inflation and unemployment.

Point four: I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source.

Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board which, like the War Production Board in World War II, will have the responsibility and authority to cut through the red tape, the delays, and the endless roadblocks to completing key energy projects.

We will protect our environment. But when this nation critically needs a refinery or a pipeline, we will build it.

Point six: I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.

I ask Congress to give me authority for mandatory conservation and for standby gasoline rationing. To further conserve energy, I’m proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems. And I’m asking you for your good and for your nation’s security to take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense — I tell you it is an act of patriotism.

Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation’s strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives.

So, the solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country. It can rekindle our sense of unity, our confidence in the future, and give our nation and all of us individually a new sense of purpose.

You know we can do it. We have the natural resources. We have more oil in our shale alone than several Saudi Arabias. We have more coal than any nation on Earth. We have the world’s highest level of technology. We have the most skilled work force, with innovative genius, and I firmly believe that we have the national will to win this war.

I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation’s problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.

Twelve hours from now I will speak again in Kansas City, to expand and to explain further our energy program. Just as the search for solutions to our energy shortages has now led us to a new awareness of our Nation’s deeper problems, so our willingness to work for those solutions in energy can strengthen us to attack those deeper problems.

I will continue to travel this country, to hear the people of America. You can help me to develop a national agenda for the 1980s. I will listen and I will act. We will act together. These were the promises I made three years ago, and I intend to keep them.

Little by little we can and we must rebuild our confidence. We can spend until we empty our treasuries, and we may summon all the wonders of science. But we can succeed only if we tap our greatest resources — America’s people, America’s values, and America’s confidence.

I have seen the strength of America in the inexhaustible resources of our people. In the days to come, let us renew that strength in the struggle for an energy secure nation.

In closing, let me say this: I will do my best, but I will not do it alone. Let your voice be heard. Whenever you have a chance, say something good about our country. With God’s help and for the sake of our nation, it is time for us to join hands in America. Let us commit ourselves together to a rebirth of the American spirit. Working together with our common faith we cannot fail.

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Are you ready for hope and change? Barack Obama better hope his bitter half has a change of attitude if she expects to assume the title of first lady in November. She’s been likened to John F. Kennedy’s wife, what with her chic suits and pearls and perfectly coiffed helmet hair. But when she opens her mouth, Michelle O. is less Jackie O. and more Wendy W. — as in Wendy Whiner, the constantly kvetching Saturday Night Live character from the early 1980s.When last our worldviews collided, back in February, the other Michelle was expounding on her lack of pride in America. I gave her myriad reasons to cheer up — from America’s role in the fall of communism and our unparalleled generosity to our nation’s superior economic system, cultural resilience, entrepreneurial spirit, and ingenuity. But since then, Mrs. Obama has dug in her $500 Jimmy Choo heels and solidified her role in the 2008 presidential campaign as Queen of the Grievance-Mongers.

In one of her few (unintentionally) funny moments during a recent sit-down with comedian Stephen Colbert, Mrs. Obama claimed, “Barack and I tend to look at the positives.” That’s a side-splitter. As National Review’s Yuval Levin put it, Michelle Obama is “America’s unhappiest millionaire.” And she has the audacity to extrapolate her misery and her husband’s alleged victimization to the “vast majority of Americans.”

MUCH MORE HERE

Democrats seem intent on nominating Barack Obama, in the face of mounting evidence that Hillary Clinton would be the stronger candidate against John McCain in November. And they only have themselves to blame.Yes, the Clinton camp made strategic blunders that allowed Obama to score heavily in Republican states where few Democrats vote. But the real culprit is the party’s stupid, self-destructive nominating system, which has two major flaws.

First, it was designed to anoint a nominee by early February, far too early in the process. The result: Obama built up an insurmountable lead at a time when he was still largely unblemished, untested and unscrutinized. The past six weeks have brought tougher media coverage, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s tapes, the candidate’s ill-considered comments about “bitter” voters and a wave of second thoughts among key groups like union members and white Catholics.

Second, the nominating system was completely incapable of reflecting these shifts. Not only were few states remaining on the calendar, the rules of proportional representation made it almost impossible for Clinton to catch up.

Since Feb. 19, seven states have voted. Clinton has won four — Pennsylvania, Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island –building up a popular-vote margin of 483,000. Yet her total gain in delegates was exactly five. In Texas, she won by more than 100,000 votes, but because of that state’s ridiculous rules, she actually came out five delegates behind.

How can that outcome possibly be fair? How can it possibly benefit the party?

Wait, it gets worse. Obama built up sizable margins in small states that Clinton was foolish enough to concede. His delegate advantage in Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana — three states that will never vote Democratic — was a total of 38. By contrast, Clinton handily won three large swing states — Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio. And yet, because of party rules, her combined marginal gain amounted to 28 delegates.
How can it make sense for Idaho, Kansas and Louisiana to have a bigger impact on choosing the Democratic nominee than Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Ohio? Add in the exclusion of Florida and Michigan, two crucial states that favor Clinton, and there’s only one word for the Democrats’ system: crazy. And Republicans are gleeful.

Three months ago, they were convinced that Clinton was the easier candidate to beat, and she’s hardly an ideal choice, not when more than half of all voters tell ABC pollsters they don’t like or trust her. But many GOP insiders now see her as a tougher, more tenacious rival, and the latest polls support that judgment.

The Associated Press-Ipsos survey gives Clinton a 50 percent to 41 percent edge over McCain, while Obama ties his Republican rival. As GOP pollster Steve Lombardo told the AP: “This just reinforces the sentiment that a lot of Republican strategists are having right now — that Clinton might actually be the more formidable fall candidate for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Obama can’t seem to get his footing back.”

One of those strategists, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, added that Obama “is by any definition very liberal, to the left of Hillary Clinton, in a center-right country. That is very, very helpful to us.” Already Republican candidates in North Carolina and Louisiana are running ads linking Democrats to Obama and his “very liberal” policies. And that’s only the first trickle in a tidal wave to come.

Obama can make some strong counterarguments. While Clinton might be the better candidate in traditional swing battlegrounds, he can “expand the map” by bringing in new voters, mainly young people and blacks, and making the Democrats competitive in red states like Colorado and Virginia.

The election map, however, has been starkly static during the Bush years, with only three small states switching sides between 2000 and 2004. Winning Ohio with Clinton is a safer bet for Democrats than capturing Colorado and Virginia with Obama.

So why don’t Democratic leaders and superdelegates face these facts and shift to Clinton? One reason is race. It’s true, as Obama says, that being black in America has hardly been a political asset, given the fact that he’s the only African-American in the U.S. Senate.

But at this time, in this party, being black is an enormous asset. Given America’s long, torturous path toward racial justice, many Democrats simply cannot imagine denying the nomination to the first serious African-American candidate for president.

From a moral perspective, that’s a noble judgment. From a political perspective, it could cost Democrats the White House.

MORE HERE

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn’t have done more damage to Barack Obama’s campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that’s just what one friend of Wright wanted.Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club “who organized” the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: “My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you” to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton’s presidency.

The same post criticized Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” theme: “Hope by definition is not based on facts,” wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time.”

In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: “It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement.”

I don’t know if Reynolds’ eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren’t returned yesterday - but it’s safe to say she didn’t see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton.

It’s hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was. Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask him a question.

Wright has, unquestionably, been caricatured and vilified unfairly. The feeding programs, prison outreach and other social services he has built over more than 30 years are commendable, and his reading of the Judeo-Christian tradition as an epic story of people trying to escape slavery is far more right than wrong - and not something to be caricatured or compressed into a 10-second sound bite.

But Wright should have known - and his friend and ally Reynolds, a media professional, surely knew - that bickering with the press can only harm Wright and, by extension, Obama.

I hope that wasn’t their goal.

(Story Link) In his first wide-ranging interview since video clips of his inflammatory sermons were aired, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. defended himself over the controversy, saying that his words were twisted.
Mr. Wright, Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor, gave an interview to Bill Moyers on Wednesday, to air on PBS tomorrow.“I felt it was unfair,” Mr. Wright said, according to excerpts of the interview released Thursday. “I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons.”
In Mr. Wright’s sermons, he suggested that Americans bore some responsibility for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, saying “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” He also blamed the government for the spread of AIDS among African-Americans, characterized the United States government as corrupt and referred to the “U.S. of K.K.K. A.”
He did not apologize or back away from his remarks in the interview, instead saying that people wanted to paint him as “some sort of fanatic.”

“It’s to paint me as something — ‘Something’s wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with this country … for its policies. We’re perfect. Our hands are free. Our hands have no blood on them,’” he said. “That’s not a failure to communicate. The message that is being communicated by the sound bites is exactly what those pushing those sound bites want to communicate.”
When asked what the people who aired the clips “wanted to communicate,” Mr. Wright said, “I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint? That’s what they wanted to communicate.”
Mr. Wright, who has acted as Mr. Obama’s spiritual mentor and retired in February as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, said that he has never heard Mr. Obama repeat any of his controversial statements.

“Absolutely not,” Mr. Wright said. “I don’t talk to him about politics. And so he had a political event, he goes out as a politician and says what he has to say as a politician. I continue to be a pastor who speaks to the people of God about the things of God.”
Mr. Obama publicly denounced Mr. Wright’s remarks, a reaction Mr. Wright said “went down very simply.”
“He’s a politician, I’m a pastor,” he said. “We speak to two different audiences. And he says what he has to say as a politician. I say what I have to say as a pastor. But they’re two different worlds.”
He added, “I do what I do. He does what politicians do. So that what happened in Philadelphia where he had to respond to the sound bytes, he responded as a politician.”