"Oh, I have every confidence in my scrounging abilities."

See ... told ya.

Having a text duel with ol' Jambo here, and I decided to post and save time.

The energy initiative Jambo spoke of a couple posts back ... yes, I agree that if you want a Reaganesque, history making long term defeat of our current enemies (Iran, Al Qeda) and "strategic competitors" (as in China), then energy independence will secure your legacy as PoTus in that vain, no question.

However, I am reluctant, to say the least, to embrace the prospect of a government works program to deal with this aspect of national security (energy independence). Jambo made the point that Reagan used the federal government via the military to defeat the Soviets. He infused our boys with funds that the Soviets simply couldn't match, and by definition, that was a government program given the military is part of the federal government under the command of the executive office. However, there is no energy department equivalent to the military. A highly professional, organized, motivated, successful organization with a proven track record is how I would describe our armed forces. Does anyone really believe that the federal government can duplicate that description in terms of creating a new energy department? I don't. So, infusing a federal program bent on energy independence via domestic production, with the cash and drive demonstrated by Reagan and the military in the 80's, would be a guaranteed disaster in my estimation.

Rather, I argue,the type of Reaganesque leadership needed here should take the form of using the bully pulpit of the presidency to 1.) focus attention on the need for domestic recovery of energy; 2.) massive deregulation legislation in terms of what it takes to get coal, nuclear, oil (refineries), and solar plants online; 3.) incentivize the tax code so as to make the prospect of getting these plants online even more attractive.

So even though you have a Reagan/military, or JFK/NASA style drive in terms of rhetoric, focus, and national expectations of success coming from the PoTUS, you legislate so as to make this energy recovery very attractive to the private sector professionals within the energy community, rather then directly participate in the recovery. NASA and the military are extreme exceptions to the litany of government program failures, and in my opinion have next to no chance of being duplicated with a new energy department or czar.

Oh ... and on that note. Obama has created the post of "Environmental Czar." He offered the post to Al Gore, the word is, but Al turned it down. Any one want to take odds on how much MORE DIFFICULT it just became for us to recover domestic energy? Ya ... that new position should scare the begeebees out of the Chinese and Iran ... huh?