It's time to give Sarah Palin her due

As we approach $2.00 per gallon gasoline, and we will see it, if only briefly, its a good time to reflect on the energy proposals of the 2008 campaign. We had promises of 5 million new green jobs, 1 million electric vehicles by 2015, and 13 new, large-scale high-speed rail corridors across the country.  We also had a promise that if we kept the faith and did what we as a country we do best we would work our way through the energy crisis without the government spending one thin dime. It was embodied in the slogan "Drill, Baby, Drill!
Do any of your friends have a green job? General Motors is projected to produce about 97,000 Chevy Volts by 2015 and in spite of $8 billion in stimulus spending everyone is still waiting to ride a high speed train. Whatever happened to Solyndra? To A123 Systems, To Fisker Automotive? Fail! Fail! Fail! There are more than 40  bankrupt companies that received DOE grants and loans.
Sarah Palin was never an editor of the Harvard Law Review but unlike the president she knows bullshit when she hears it. She doesn't put her faith in lithium ion batteries or solar panels. She believes in the ingenuity of Americans, the ability to find a fix for about any technical problem. Spurred by fracking U.S. oil production has jumped from 5.0 million barrels per day in 2008 to 7.4 million last year and is expected to average 8.5 million this year and 9.3 million next year, according to the EIA, the analytical arm of the Department of Energy. Natural gas production has increased from 57 billion cubic feet per day in 2009 to 70 billion in 2014. The energy sector is the single largest creator of jobs since 2009.
Palin's critics say she offered simple solutions to complex problems. What they ignore is the fact that the less complicated the solution the better.
Witness our Quixotic windmill salesman in chief:

Now, even if we increase domestic oil production, that is not going to be the long-term solution to our energy challenge.  I give out this statistic all the time, and forgive me for repeating it again:  America holds about 2 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves.  What that means is, is that even if we drilled every drop of oil out of every single one of the reserves that we possess -- offshore and onshore -- it still wouldn’t be enough to meet our long-term needs.  We consume about 25 percent of the world’s oil.  We only have 2 percent of the reserves.  Even if we doubled U.S. oil production, we’re still really short. 

Perhaps Katie Couric should ask, "And when it comes to establishing your world view, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines do you regularly read.."