If you drill it, it will come.

Even though MN Rep. Michele Bachmann says peculiar things from time to time, (such as her recent "joke" regarding God sending messages to Washington, D.C. via earthquakes and hurricanes, which as jokes go, is in questionable taste since the hurricane was still damaging property and killing people while she was saying it) I'd have to say that no matter how peculiar her statements can be--it's her grap of policy we should really be paying attention to.

As in, I just don't know how much grasp she has on reality, let alone ability to make policies regarding it.

Recently, she's been discussing energy policy, which is a serious topic because high energy costs drive up the prices on everything else.  She's said she would approve drilling for oil in the Everglades.   Not that anyone thinks there's any oil there, you see.  It's the principal of the thing, hippies! You can't tell her it's foolish! Only bunnyhuggers and treelovers engage in that kind of talk! (Honestly, I don't think anyone would accuse FL Rep. Allen West of being a radical environmentalist hippie.   And also, I don't understand why conservationism isn't associated with conservatism as much--I think they should bring it back.)

Of course, the "Drill here, drill now" mantra has been chanted by some for a while, and the issue of drilling in ANWR has been something of a wedge issue for decades, now.  But ANWR isn't the Everglades, and probably has oil--the Everglades?  Not so much.  But the idea of "let's be open to drilling everywhere and anywhere" just doesn't mesh with the realities of oil production



For one thing, she seems to labor under the notion, which isn't all that uncommon, that oil just waits to be tapped, like a keg, and that any hill-dweller hunting up some breakfast can strike a gusher with a stray bullet.  There's a bit of exploration involved, geological surveys, things like that--and it takes time and exploration to actually hit anything.  Since there's a decent outlay of overhead involved, there's no real reason for companies to want to just drill any old place--especially not where there's a guarantee of red tape before even getting started.  For another--the "drill here", and "drill now" parts of the old mantra just aren't....apt.   Oil extracted from anywhere, including the US, goes on the world market. And "drill now" is not a promise of instant oil.  As Think Progress points out, the Everglades also is a source of drinking water for millions of Floridians--as important as oil may be, people can survive without it.  Water is something quite else.

Michele Bachmann is also something quite else.  I'm just not exactly sure how to put it.