Now Obama needs to find a connection, however tenuous, between these guys and McCain. Hell, find a fictional connection, then if pressed say it represents a "deeper truth".

That's the way the game is played, guys. If you don't want to play it, drop out of the game.

I used to think that oil execs are no different than Wal-Mart board members or Motor City execs, or farmers, ranchers, bankers, or whatever. They are hard working, provide millions of jobs, and provide a good that we all need.

But the recent attention on energy independence and the lack of a coherent energy policy for the last eight years has put their work in a different light.

Energy policy is corrupt because it is so tied into back-scratching and favors. The grease skidders make more money than the folks who drill for oil, refine it, or transport it.

It is time to dust off the files from the Cheney secret meetings. Left, right, and independent all must realize that it's time to get the books straight first and foremost. Drilling here or there is really secondary to cleaning up the inefficiencies that corruption brings to the system.

If I were Obama and Biden, I'd start mentioning this at very campaign stop. I'd do a big, important speech on ending the culture of corruption in Washington. I'd say that McCain and Palin were nice, but too tied down by the exisiting Republicans to do anything. And I'd be sure to mention the words COCAINE and SEX as many times as possible.

It's a great way to combine an actual issue with enough scandal to get people to pay attention. It'd also put McCain and Palin on defense.

Echoes of Teapot Dome . . .

This would also explain why the Dept hasn't been collecting royalty payments from the oil companies.

I prefer to think the free market works most of the time, but I'm starting to think we should nationalize the oil industry in this country.

Country first, profits second, and all that.

Be a Maverick, vote Obama.

Is this the September no surprise?

Fall, who was in charge of Interior. I see that not much has changed, except Harding was too dumb to catch on. Now what we have is deliberate, but still dumb.

And the best part is that the head honchos are all off the hook. Same old same old with these crooks - all you have to do is retire and we'll make sure that the Justice department comes to the conclusion that not all illegal acts are crimes.

Obama needs to find a connection, however tenuous, between these guys and McCain.

According to Jonathan Zasloff, McCain, as chair of the Senate Commerce Committee during most of the time these shennanigans were going on, had oversight responsibility. How did that work out for us?

[Luther, why don't you go the way of LoneWacko and start an anti-immigration blog, rather than obsess on the topic here in every thread, whether it applies or not? -Mod]

Insignificant compared to the corruption in enforcement of immigration law.

Shorter Luther: Please pay no attention to yet another Republican scandal.

I do cocaine! And allocate drilling c-c-contracts! I do it all.

Echoes of Teapot Dome . . .

Posted by: Media Browski on September 11, 2008 at 9:50 AM

What echoes? It's all Teapot Dome, only the location and the players change.

Gives a new visual to "Drill, Baby, Drill," doesn't it?

Maybe there's a link to the Republicans in the House who are so HOT to give the oil companies what they have wanted for years and years. Pics or videos can be quite persuasive.

Do you doubt that the Big Oil guys would stoop to this tactic?

Gregory - Bingo! Thanks. Everyone repeat after me: "Under McCain, the Interior Dept literally got into bed with Big Oil. Let's end the Bush-Cheney-McCain-Palin culture of corruption in Washington."

And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And ...

I hope Nancy Pelosi is paying attention and decides not to allow the oil drilling vote. Or maybe she is also in big oils pocket. She agrees with warrantless wire tapping of her fellow
Americans and I know she enjoys being rich so she probably has a lot of $$$ from big oil.

This is not about offshore drilling. Offshore drilling is not a campaign issue that will work for Democrats. Apart from coastal politicians playing to NIMBY sentiment, offshore drilling doesn't help anyone on the Democratic side.

This is instead about corruption. It is about a pattern of corruption that extends to many places in the Bush administration besides the Minerals Management Service -- for example to Pentagon procurement, logistics contracts in Iraq, the Housing and Urban Development Department, the Justice Department. For heaven's sake, the husband of the MMS official who headed the office where all this appalling behavior went on was the head of procurement for OMB until recently.

Corruption always works as a political issue. It will work this year, too.

I was shocked -- SHOCKED -- when I learned that, as these guys retire, they write contract requests for their own jobs. Then they retire, start new companies, and win those contracts (with a few cocaine & hooker bribes).

SHOCKED -- that I didn't think of it myself.

I did not have sex with that goil.

This is instead about corruption. It is about a pattern of corruption that extends to many places in the Republican Party besides the Minerals Management Service

Fixed it for you.

I agree with Zathras that corruption is a winning issue for Democrats, but it isn't just Bush corruption, it's the whole rotten Republican Party, from McCain and Palin on down.

I used to think that oil execs are no different than Wal-Mart board members or Motor City execs, or farmers, ranchers, bankers, or whatever. They are hard working, provide millions of jobs, and provide a good that we all need.

Do you really think this type of ego-fueled mentality is only characteristic of the Energy sector? Come live in Manhattan for a few years. You'll see things that will make you think twice about your perception of the people that make the world go 'round.

Power doesn't corrupt. Power attracts the corruptable.

I thought we WON the war on drugs, especially cocaine?

It's not possible that our government might actually be bringing the stuff into our country is it?

Let me get this straight. We've spent billions of dollars trying to stem the flow of cocaine, and we've spent untold billions securing oil resources in the Middle East. Now it turns out, both substances go hand in hand, nose to nose when it comes to licensing drilling permits and royalty payments.

The sex? Well, I can let this one slide because the folks were only exploring each other's interiors, why else do you think we call it the Dept. of the Interior!?

Sex with the oil crowd? No wonder these guys are shouting Drill Here, Drill Now! (H/T Olbermann)

I've always wanted to be in a position where people sought my favor to get policy set for them. I would accept sexual favors from hotties only to NOT do what they wanted me to do.

Get the good stuff (sex, not money...or money if they are stoopid enough to part with it) but DON'T do their bidding. What's not to like?

Drill your babies, drill! Kids have tons of acne and oily skin!
The MSM needs to focus on this, not Palin's makeup choice or old aphorisms.

that's just polishing a turd...wait that's scatologist of me!

"Jaw dropping...scandal"

Nice double entendre in the title, Steve.

"Now Obama needs to find a connection, however tenuous, between these guys and McCain."
...

Posted by: Basilisc on September 11, 2008
--------------

When the pressure was turned up on Palin this suddenly came out. There are often so many scandals in this Bush administration it's hard to know which is most important. In this case I think the MMS scandal is somewhat done and leads back to Bush. The other branch of the Palin investigation and Alaskan oil interests leads to TransCanada and toward Ottawa and then perhaps back into America.

As a journalist I would want to follow the story which HASN'T been investigated and ISN'T known yet. I'd take Transcanada flight 666 to Ottawa and see if I could find a thread leading to New York or Washington or elsewhere.

Who has Harper in Canada been most tied to in America? Who in Canada handles business interests and ecological disasters like Alberta oil? How's the money travel and get skimmed?

The Denver story might just be Friday junk story released the day before 9/11, so nobody would pay it much attention and it might be a diversion from Alaska/Palin, but it doesn't go farther than Bush.

Were any of the corrupt officials in the Denver office political officials (i.e., nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate) or were they all tenured civil servants who belong to some public employees union?

Yep, of course, this does nothing to advance the cause of progressives, because the benighted yahoos that comprise 50%+1 of the electorate will hear this and simply see it as a reason to vote for the "anti- Big Government" candidate.

"Tired of the shennanigans of Big Gummint bureaucrats in Warshington!!! Vote Preston Cletis Pigfucker for Senate. He's mad as hell, and ain't gonna take it anymore!"