Windfall -- profits and stupidity

The Pioneer Press does a pro/con -- sort of -- on the price of gasoline on today’s Opinion Page. There’s not much to say about it except that the juxtaposition of the two articles provides a pretty good picture of the difference between a fact-based discussion of energy issue and well, the left.

Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the Cato Institute layout a fact-based, economics-based analysis of gas prices, oil company profits and why a windfall profits tax is a bad idea. Even if one disagrees with their analysis, there’s some “there” there to argue about. Taylor and Van Doren present an argument.

In the blue corner is the New York Times Maureen Dowd (article is not up on the PiPress website). Attractively attired in a tin-foil hat, Dowd’s piece makes the incisive argument Bush and Chaney are stupid, Bush and Chaney are greedy, Bush and Chaney are oil men, Bush and Chaney are corrupt.

I admit, I’m tempted to let her have “Bush and Chaney are stupid” -- for giving any credence to arguments about windfall profits and market manipulation. But as for the rest of her piece, there’s not a cogent thought in it. The left will love it.