It is laundry day. Saturday morning at Clyde’s, the dividing door between the bar and laundromat is closed, so I walk around and find the open sign unlit, but the front door unlocked. Clyde is sitting at his usual table reading the Roanoke Times.
As I walk back to the table, after pouring my own cup of coffee, Clyde folds up the paper and said, “I just read a story about another coal company going down.”
“Yeah, I saw that too,” I said. “You know, I’ve read that every mining job produces 11 others in the community. It’s a big loss. Some are people like me, who work for companies that support the mines, others are people like you in the community who depend on the miner family’s spending.”
“Obama and Kaine each say they support reliable, affordable energy. What the hell can I believe, Bunkie? They both have repeatedly said they are for a ‘all the above’ solution to our energy problems. But it’s looking more like ‘all the above’ means everything but coal. His EPA is killing my power bill, and Chairman Kaine just grins that silly grin as he goes about it.”
As I sat down I said, “That was how I took it too, Clyde, ‘let’s use all the resources we got.’ I heard it like that for a long time. Remember though, Obama has a long-standing promise to bankrupt coal, Kaine apparently supports that. At least he won’t say he doesn’t.
“A plan like that would make natural gas, already more costly than coal, even more expensive. As Obama promised, your energy costs will skyrocket. That’s one campaign promise he is determined to deliver.
“I think I’ve figured it out though, and I believe if you think about it for a minute or two you will stop thinking ‘all the above’ is the same as ‘all inclusive’ and finally understand it for what it is.
“Look at it this way, my second ex-wife was a school marm. One day a student came up to her desk to report a 5 dollar bill missing. After an investigation there was an obvious suspect who claimed he had ‘found’ the bill. After the Principal conducted a thorough interview with the kid the rest of the story came to light. The fact he had ‘found’ the bill on another student’s desk meant nothing to him. He found it. It was now his.
“Karen, my wife at the time, was convinced that the kid, if subjected to a polygraph, was telling the absolute truth. Just not all of the truth. Kid’s probably in some county government position now.
“Tim Kaine and Barack Obama are telling the exact same kind of truth.”
Clyde was looking puzzled while I got up to refill our cups.
When I returned to the table I asked, “Do you see the connection now, Clyde?”
“I think I do, Bunkie. Coal, natural gas, and oil all come from below the ground. While solar and wind, which Kaine and Obama want desperately for us to switch to, come from above the ground. ‘All the above’ is both truthful and deceptive at the same time because of what they don’t say.”
“Bingo. You got it. Politifact would even label it ‘Mostly True’.”
