NYT Claims McCain Joins Obama On Drilling

From the “Global Edition Of The New York Times,” the International Herald Tribune:

McCain joins Obama on offshore drilling

By Brian Knowlton

Sunday, August 3, 2008

WASHINGTON: A day after Senator Barack Obama said he could support broad energy legislation even though it would permit offshore oil drilling, which he has opposed, an aide to Senator John McCain said Sunday that he too might support such a package…

In Florida, Obama said that he remained concerned about potential environmental damage from offshore drilling but was open to compromise.

“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post. “If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well-thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage – I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.” The bipartisan package he referred to would include more subsidies for alternative energy sources.

Nancy Pfotenhauer, a McCain economic adviser, said on CNN on Sunday that “Senator McCain is open to compromise packages” on energy.

McCain had dropped his own opposition to offshore drilling, saying that soaring gasoline prices demanded new approaches…

It isn’t often that we get to see the media rewrite history so outrageously.

It is a well established fact that Mr. McCain has been for offshore drilling for some time now.

It is equally well known that Mr. Obama has adamantly opposed such drilling until his typically tortured and highly ambiguous remarks of yesterday.

And he has even backpedaled from that tentative step.

Clearly, the Solons at the New York Times are giving up all pretense of non-partisanship. Or even that they care one jot for the truth.

Of course none of this is news to anyone who has been sitting up and taking nourishment for the last thirty years.

Still, we will have to give this a couple of martinis, since the McCain camp have worded things in such a way as to allow The Times to spin things this way.