Barack Obama: International Man of Mystery (as well as Messiah)

"Take ethanol. Obama appears to be trying to scrub the public record of his past support for federal corn-ethanol subsidies and mandates. In August, the Obama campaign purged several sections on corn ethanol from his online energy plan. Now it may be that Obama’s staunch support for corn ethanol during the Iowa caucuses — the primary-season victory that created his campaign’s momentum — is now regretted and abandoned. Or it may be that this summer’s big increases in food prices — boosted in part by ethanol mandates — caused him to downplay his support for Big Corn, but that he has every intention of fulfilling his campaign promises to Iowa’s farmers. We simply don’t know — because the Obama campaign won’t tell us."

What a bunch of corn!

"Jimmy Carter helped push through a windfall profits tax on oil producers in 1980. As the Tax Foundation notes, that plan 'had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent.' Moreover, as any supply-sider could have predicted, the tax failed to meet the government’s revenue projections. Congress repealed the windfall-profits tax in 1988. Why Obama wants to reprise one of Jimmy Carter’s more notorious policy debacles is not clear — though the point may be moot now that the global economic slowdown has driven the price of oil below Obama’s arbitrary $80 threshold."

To keep America dependent upon foreign oil, right?