Romney and Cape Wind

A thorough article describing how local and national Democrats and Republicans have attempted to stop offshore wind power production in one of the best suited areas in the country. Mitt Romney and Ted Kennedy bear the brunt of the criticism in the article.

Conservatives consistently critique only Ted Kennedy's involvement in this matter--spinning the usual yarn about liberal hypocrisy. An important point to remember, however, is that it's the other guy who is running for President. Here's what Michael Vickerman has to say about Romney:

Romney’s contribution to NIMBY rhetoric raises two important questions: one about his fitness for the presidency and the other about the definition of a national treasure. About the first, here is a governor who decided to let his opposition to Cape Wind define his administration’s energy policy. Either Romney was blind to the nation’s interest in displacing an imported fuel like bunker oil with locally produced renewable electricity—a benefit Cape Wind can deliver but a similar project in the Berkshires cannot—or else he was willing to sacrifice that environmental gain just to curry favor with his backers.

Whatever the explanation, Romney’s hostility toward Cape Wind, and his administration’s repeated attempts to kill the project, are the workings of a man who is manifestly unfit to lead a nation that has no choice but to cut back its consumption of energy and expand its use of renewables.

We should keep that in mind when Mitt talks about energy