GO, SENATE, GO
By a vote of 54-46, the Senate has rejected an amendment to the president's energy policy that would, if it had passed, have allowed drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. This has been a big, ugly issue since the 2000 campaigns began -- with the hostility in the middle east holding steady on "broil" these days, the fighting about oil is even worse.

But I don't think it's really the oil itself people care about the most. Listen to the rallying-cries on the different sides of the issue. I mean, obviously the anti-drilling crowd doesn't think the oil is the most important thing. They're arguing against irreparable damage to the environment and the wildlife (and getting called "radical" for their trouble -- but the meaninglessness of hurled epithets in political debates is another rant). Even the pro-drilling crowd, though, says "End dependence on foreign oil", as though drilling in Alaska were some sort of magical cure-all that would return us to the happy days of isolationism -- er, self-sufficiency.

Point 1: Some opponents maintain (and I don't know enough about the mechanics of oil drilling to agree or disagree) that drilling now won't yield significant amounts of oil for at least ten years -- during which time, of course, we'd still be importing our oil from fun-loving places like Saudia Arabia.

Point 2: This is the United States, gang. Demand will increase to meet supply. We're funny like that. We're also funny like having some awfully damn smart people in our university laboratories, though -- we have the technology to end dependence on oil, full stop, foreign or domestic, amen. We haven't needed to get serious about implementing it, but if we needed to, we could.

Energy independence and national security aren't it. The big issues are related to each other: Alaska would like the money (who wouldn't?), and would get half the royalties from ANWR oil; and drilling up there would create many, many jobs. But Alaska does okay, and the economy everywhere is back on an upswing -- we don't need to invent jobs that will harm the world more in the long term than they help the country in the short term.

Fifty-four senators agree with me. I don't know who the three dissenting Republicans were (assuming all the Democrats and Mr. Jeffords voted against the amendment), but I doff my hat to them.