Drill baby drill

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman broke his silence on the recount in Minnesota’s election for the seat he holds today, saying “I’m a winner” and predicting that most of the mounting number of challenged ballots — including his campaign’s apparently — will be dismissed. Of the Coleman and Al Franken campaigns’ increasingly aggressive ballot challenges, Coleman said, “There are games being played on both sides and it would be great if people put the games aside.” He disavowed personal involvement in the recount’s nitty-gritty — “I’m not involved in day-to-day recount stuff.”
Continued, with video, after the jump.

As Congress, Wall Street and the American public debate the merits of using $700 billion in taxpayer money to shore up a crumbling banking industry, many people have offered putative solutions. Rep. Michele Bachmann–stop her if you’ve heard this one before–wants to open up the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Bachmann has been on a months-long crusade to open more oil drilling around the United States, a crusade critics say would have little practical impact on gas prices at the pump.

For the past several weeks, Sarah Palin has aggressively harvested Alaska’s mythic cultural status on a national political stage. In addition to her near-daily odes to guns, hockey and mooseburger, Palin has also reinforced the perception of Alaska as a vast frontier land where environmental concerns and resource extraction converge harmoniously. By explaining, as she did to the right wing throwbacks at Newsmax, that Alaska would experience the consequences of climate change in unique ways, she has repeatedly implied that her leadership on climate change has been cautious and realistic.

It hasn’t.