Why Did Obama Decide to Drill, Baby?

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I should have posted this yesterday, but I forgot. On Tuesday night, responding to President Obama’s decision to unilaterally open up new offshore drilling tracts, I asked, “Wouldn’t he be better off holding this stuff in reserve and negotiating it away in return for actual support, not just hoped-for support?” Well, it turns out that something of a consensus answer has formed about this.

Basically, it goes like this. Sure, Obama could have held out on offshore drilling and used it as a bargaining chip to get some Republican support for an overall climate plan. But no Republican would have made the deal anyway, so it wouldn’t have done any good. However, by doing it preemptively, Obama has (a) deprived them of an issue to sputter about this summer, (b) split their ranks, and (c) made himself look like a pretty reasonable guy to the general public. Long story short, this is mostly a long-term play for public opinion, not part of a short-term partisan negotiation.

I’m not sure if I buy this or not. But I just thought I should mention it since I asked the question in the first place.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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