Why I’m Sticking with Pickens - even after "Drill, Drill, Drill"

T. Boone Pickens advocates a massive investment in wind power as a way to get off foreign oil, but in a new video segment he says we should "drill, drill, drill." Progressives and environmentalists were tentatively accepting the oil-man turned wind-champion as an ally in the quest for more renewable energy, but his latest ad is likely to scare some of them off.

It shouldn't.

Progressives have taken a hard-line against offshore drilling, arguing that it won't bring down gas prices for another ten years, and even then, not by much. They see any compromise on drilling -- like Obama's recent announcement that he's not against all drilling -- as political pandering.

But Democrats should drop the dogmatism and seize the political moment to carve out a drilling policy on their own terms. Otherwise, the options are no drilling or drilling wrong, and the American public has made quite clear their support for the latter.

It's ironic that one of the most prominent advocates for redefining the terms of the debate is a staunch Republican, but that's no reason to ignore the wisdom of the Pickens approach. Taken in context, his call to drill was actually an indictment of Republicans' false promises about drilling:

I say drill, drill, drill. But the debate misses the point. Either way, we'll still be dependent on foreign oil.

See for yourself: