dan’s outside

Several bits of Bush News today.

First, seen in may places is the following news:

Bush Acts on Drilling, Challenging Democrats. President Bush lifted nearly two decades of executive orders banning offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, while a Congressional moratorium on drilling remains in place. [NYT > NYTimes.com Home]

Does anyone really see this as anything more than a wedge issue for the upcoming presidential election? It won’t make a bit of difference in the price of oil/gas, the oil companies are already not making use of all the currently available exploration and drilling leases, and the environmental costs are tremendous.

I listened to a good part of Bush’s press conference this morning. Hearing him get lost, forget what question he had just been asked, mumble embarrassing asides between answers, utter many sentences that either made absolutely no logical sense and/or exactly contradicted the point he was trying to make, repeat irrelevant “boilerplate”… am I the really only one who wonders – political differences aside – about his basic competence as President?

If you wonder what I’m talking about, find a moment to listen to a bit of today’s press conference. Frankly, I’m not sure whether the appropriate description is “sad,” “pathetic,” “embarrassing,” or “scary” – or all of the above.