The Republican Governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, has declared:

“‘Drill baby, drill’ by itself is not an energy policy. It’s not enough. We’re going to need wind and solar and bio mass.”

What Pawlenty is saying is that arguing with global warming politics is not viable. Therefore, the logic of drilling must be substituted with the illogic of expensive, and hence dirtier, sources of energy. As I wrote in “The Goods on Gas“:

“The more efficient the source of energy, the less waste and pollution are involved in its conversion into energy. Think of the totality of the production process! The fewer resources expended in bringing a fuel to market, the cleaner and cheaper is the process.”

So, Mr. Pawlenty, drilling is so an energy policy—especially if one hasn’t drilled in decades, and if oil is one of most viable sources of energy. Most Republicans have simply lost the ability to make a case, any case.

Update (Nov. 20): It’s my theory that the quest for power, among the punditocracy and the pols alike, creates a convergence toward opinions most acceptable to power brokers and voters.

To wit, in “Rebooting the Right,” Ramesh Ponnuru, editor of National Review, ladles out the same lukewarm, happy, middle-grounds we’ve heard from most GOPers–and I surveyed in “GOP, RIP?“:

“At the GOP governors’ meeting this month, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota argued that Republicans need to stay conservative but also modernize. A revitalized conservatism would push for tax reform with an eye on middle-class families, not hedge-fund operators. It would seek solutions to global warming rather than deny that it exists. It would place a higher priority on making health care affordable than on slashing pork programs. It would promote the assimilation of Hispanics rather than regard them as a menace or a source of cheap labor.”