Good stuff today from Clive Crook:

The US does not know whether to tax energy or subsidise it, promote domestic oil production or forbid it, treat ExxonMobil and Chevron as champions or pariahs. So it does all of the above.

I should note that both Barack Obama and John McCain are incoherent on this point. As the New York Times dryly observes, Obama favors ethanol subsidies, "some of which end up in the hands of the same oil companies he says should be subjected to a windfall profits tax." As for John McCain, he seems not to understand what cap and trade means.