As you probably heard yesterday, President Barack Obama announced plans to expand drilling for oil off the Atlantic coast of the U.S.. Not only that, he insulted environmental advocates and their “tired” arguments against drilling.

I have nothing profound to say about this decision, but when even a big Obama fan like Oliver Willis says the administration “Clearly Took Stupid Pills Today,” that ought to tell you something. Increasing our offshore extraction of oil won’t reduce our reliance on imports from the Middle East, and Obama knows it won’t. This is just a political ploy to win some votes in the Senate while making the president look like he holds the reasonable middle ground.

Once again, Obama makes a big concession to the corporate/Republican position at the beginning of the negotiating process, without gaining anything concrete in return. A good negotiator would make that kind of concession to close the deal, and only in exchange for something significant (like a hugely ambitious renewable electricity standard).

The Senate energy bill (let’s not even pretend it’s a “climate change” bill anymore) will probably allow more offshore drilling that the president announced, and that will probably be fine with the White House. Environmentalists will be asked to clap louder at “progress” or be grateful that Obama didn’t sell us out in a more egregious way.

I am tired of having to fight this kind of battle when the Democrats control Washington. It’s another reason I probably will never again give to Democratic committees at the levels I did from 2004 through 2007.

UPDATE: I recommend reading this post at EnviroKnow: “Dems More Trusted on Energy than Any Other Issue, Yet they Continue Pursuing Polluter-Friendly GOP Ideas.”