Allyson Schwartz (D-PA) on Obama’s Vote for the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy — Let’s Play Dodgeball
By Charles Lemos on August 6, 2008 at 12:30 PM in Barack Obama, Energy Policy Act of 2005, Hillary Clinton, John McCain
Poor, poor Allyson Schwartz, a Democratic Congresswoman from Pennsylvania, who yesterday was embarrassed on national television by MSNBC’s David Schuster who asked in the wake of Obama’s attacks on the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy:
Didn’t Barack Obama vote for the 2005 Bush-Cheney energy bill?
At first she dodged the question and tried the valiant, let’s not talk about that, let’s talk about this tactic. Schuster would have none of it and persisted. To which, the idiotic Congresswoman from Pennsylvania could only say that David Schuster would have to ask the Obama campaign. Really? So either she didn’t know or she was too embarrassed to admit the awful truth and hypocrisy of Obama’s energy attacks.
Allow me then, Congresswoman, to inform you that Senator Obama voted for the 2005 Energy Bill, written in secret by Vice President Cheney and the energy lobby. Thomas Friedman referred to the bill as “the sum of all lobbies.” U.S. PIRG noted that the bill’s “heavy tilt toward big oil companies reflects the influence of Exxon Mobil and other oil companies on policy-makers in Washington, DC.”
The Washington Post editorialized that the bill was a “piñata of perks for energy industries.” Indeed, the bill contained $6 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry and $12 billion to the nuclear power industry.
Although Sen. Obama voted for the legislation, he has spoken as if he opposed it on the campaign trail, criticizing it repeatedly. At a presidential debate he said “You can look at how Dick Cheney did his energy policy . . . he met with oil and gas companies forty times, and that’s how they put together our energy policy.” He attributes the failure of our current energy policy to Congress’s “failure to stand up to the lobbyists.” Actually Barack, I attribute the failure of current energy policy to shameless politicians like you and Dick Durbin who crossed the aisle to vote the most egregious give-away since the 1872 Mining Law.
Here’s the transcript of Schuster’s grilling of Allyson Schwartz:
DAVID SHUSTER: Congresswoman, during the event in Ohio today, Barack Obama attacked the Bush-Cheney energy policy. But didn’t Barack Obama vote for the 2005 Bush-Cheney energy bill?
ALLYSON SCHWARTZ: Well let’s talk about what John McCain’s been saying, and John McCain was in Pennsylvania just yesterday and really had very little to say about doing anything differently than the Bush administration’s been doing for years.
SHUSTER: Congresswoman, I’m happy to talk about that, but just a yes or no question: didn’t Barack Obama vote for the 2005 Bush-Cheney energy bill?
SCHWARTZ: Well, I think, you know, we have to go back and, and check on that. I’m sure the campaign can give you the specifics on, uh, exactly what, uh, was done.
Allyson Schwartz, I think your television career, hapless as it was, as a surrogate is over.
You can view the exchange in all its fluttering glory on here. It’s must see television as they say. You can actually see her panic when her attempt to play dodgeball failed. She looks up to the side and you can see her wonder “what do I say next?” In this case, shamelessly Allyson Schwartz chose to dodge again and pass the buck. She chose to omit the truth. Obama voted for the Bush-Cheney Energy Policy. John McCain did not. And it matters, neither did Hillary Clinton.
From my blog, By The Fault.
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