T. Boone Pickens: Hypocrite

This has been bothering me for awhile, and I just saw it again, so I'm just going to quickly vent. Have you seen T. Boone Pickens and his commercial for his "Pickens' Plan"?:



This is my favorite line:

"We don't need anymore talk, we need action, and a plan. And it's got to be the top priority of the next president and the next Congress."

Why is this funny? Well, for that you have to know a little bit more about T. Boone. T. Boone is a Republican. T. Boone was a big supporter of Reagan. T. Boone was a big financial backer of none other than George W. Bush. Not only that, T. Boone helped fun the Swiftboat Veterans for "Truth", which "swiftboated" Kerry, and are typically attributed with winning the 2004 election for Bush. He also offered a $1 million reward for anyone who could prove the swiftboaters had lied about Kerry, which Kerry took him up on, and then T. Boone reneged on that offer.

So seriously? We are getting lectured on energy policy by someone who helped Bush "beat" Al Gore in 2000, and John Kerry in 2004? We are seriously getting a lecture from someone who supported the worst president for the environment in history, someone who has obstructed any and every attempt to fight climate change, and someone who has repeatedly muzzled NASA's climate scientists because what they had to say conflicted with what the oil companies wanted?? Is this for real? Hey T. Boone, if you REALLY care at all about the environment or energy independence, a small forest of wind power plants are nice, but do you know what is even nicer? NOT SUPPORTING PEOPLE WHO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO FIGHTING EVERYTHING YOU PROFESS TO STAND FOR!! Yes, this means Republicans. "We don't need anymore talk, we need action, and a plan. And it's got to be the top priority of the next president and the next Congress." Talk about a hypocrite.

And has he learned anything since he supported Bush in 2004? Not likely. Pickens was on the executive committee of Rudy Giuliani's Presidential Committee. Even after four decades of supporting the party that has made fighting the environment a centerpiece of its mission, T. Boone can't seem to get enough, even though if he were serious about this being the "top priority", he clearly would need to support a Democrat. This is why Pickens is either a complete fake, or a complete idiot. I'm betting on fake. The guy is a big supporter of natural gas, and talks more about independence from foreign oil than renewable resources. My bet is he is trying to greenwash his activities with some wind turbines, just like all the big oil companies are doing now as well. Pay lip service to climate change, say you are part of the solution, and then continue to pursue policies, or help elect people, that will continue to put profit over the environment. Let's start a countdown to him starting to push offshore drilling.

The bottom line: You can't separate politics from anything, especially climate change and energy policy. Don't pretend you want change, and then turn around and support the exact same party that has been responsible for the problems are you complaining about. You are either a fool, or you take everyone else for fools.

Update from the Future: T. Boone's second round of ads are up, and as expected he is now saying "drill drill drill!"