During last week's Vice Presidential debate Sarah Palin got global warming backwards. The next day, her first order of business was meeting with Republican operative T. Boone Pickens.
Since no members of the media were present, the only information we have comes from Pickens himself. Not the best source of information, but we'll take what we can get.
T. Boone's account of their meeting raises three questions.
This is rich.
Governor Palin comes from an energy state, and I'll tell you, she gets this energy situation. We talked about it like two oil and gas professionals.
As has been pointed out repeatedly, Sarah Palin does not "get" the energy situation. See this, this and this. Truth be told, she probably "gets" the energy situation about as well as Pickens himself gets global warming.
We spent some time talking about ANWR--the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. We didn't agree on how much oil is up there, but I told her I was all for drilling. You know what I say about this: I'm for anything American.
This should come as no surprise. Palin has been fudging the facts about Alaskan oil reserves and production since she was plucked out of thin air five weeks ago:
After FactCheck.org pointed out that Alaska is actually responsible for only 3.5 percent of the country's domestic energy production, Palin began re-phrasing her claim. But in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday McCain continued to repeat the debunked claim.
Will she figure this one out, or continue repeating this lie?
And finally:
Her husband Todd sat in on the meeting. You know that he's a steelworker in the oil fields during the Alaskan summers, so he understands a good bit of this, too. He was interested in the concept of filling your vehicle in your garage overnight using the same gas line that goes to your kitchen range and hot water heater.
A lot of questions have been asked about Todd Palin's role in policy decisions. Why is Governor Palin's husband so involved in policy meetings on a subject she claims is her strongest? If Sarah Palin was such an energy expert with so many great ideas on the issue, wouldn't she have had a one on one meeting with Pickens, without the first dude getting in the way?
Here is the bottom line: If either T. Boone Pickens or Sarah Palin has a say in the future of our energy policy, we are in serious trouble.