Freeze-out

From Fox News: “House drops Arctic oil drilling bill provision”

House leaders late Wednesday abandoned an attempt to push through a hotly contested plan to open an Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling, fearing it would jeopardize approval of a sweeping budget bill Thursday.

Charles Krauthammer once called ANWR the “poster child of cake-and-eat-it-too eco-petulance.” Americans hate paying $3 for a gallon of gas. After 9/11, I thought that Americans would support exploration and development of domestic petroleum sources because every dollar of oil we generate at home is one less dollar going to the Saudi government. But no. We can’t even explore for oil in a land covered in ice three-quarters of the year because it might displace some caribou. Bulldog Pundit asks the right question given how the Republicans have caved on this and other issues: do they deserve to be in the majority? (See also “Why Republicans lost” on GOP Bloggers).