Last week the press was full of reports on Senator Hillary Clinton's "major speech on energy." A typical report was carried in the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer, picked up from the wire service of the New York Post. But from the evidence in the national press coverage, it does not seem that a single reporter leaned back in his chair and actually thought about what she said on the critical issue of nuclear energy.
The main point of Senator Clinton's speech (other than that she is positioning herself to run for President), was that our national energy policy is trapping us into bad decisions internationally. She said, "Right now, instead of national security dictating our energy policy, our failed energy policy dictates our national security."
On the subject of nuclear energy, she noted that we could increase our reliance on that form of non-imported, non-polluting, inexhaustible energy. However, she immediately backed away from this idea, saying, "There remain very serious questions about nuclear power and our ability to manage it in a world with suicidal terrorists."
It was at that point in analyzing her speech that the national press developed brain freeze. Where are the terrorists from bin Laden on down getting the millions of dollars to finance their murderous, sub rosa war? Most of that money comes from the pockets of American drivers as they fill up at the pump. Part of the profits from imported oil from Saudi Arabia and Iran (and now perhaps Venezuela) leak into the hands of terrorists.
So to say that we cannot expand nuclear power because of terrorists, as Mrs. Clinton does, means we must continue to pour money into the hands of terrorists, rather than go to nuclear energy, which does not have to be imported.
Understand what was happening in her speech at this point. She wanted to make a bow toward nuclear energy, because it is such a self-evident alternative source of power. However, she needed an excuse not to jump on that bandwagon for fear of alienating her "environmentalist base."
The logic of her excuse could not be more transparent, nor false. And yet, not a single member of the press covering her speech noticed this self-contradiction. Why? Weren't they listening to what she said? (Source.)
