Via Atrios, Steve Benen over at the Washington Monthly comments on McCain’s shortcut approach when it comes to nuclear power:
“You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words,” McCain said. “We talk about offshore drilling and he said he would quote, consider, offshore drilling. We talked about nuclear power, well it has to be safe, environment, blah, blah, blah.”
Now, the Republican activists on hand for the speech found “blah, blah, blah” to be absolutely hilarious. I haven’t the foggiest idea why.
But it does raise a question about McCain’s approach to the issue. Obama has clear concerns about safeguards for nuclear power; McCain believes these safeguards are not only irrelevant, but worthy of mockery.
I’m curious: which concerns, specifically, does McCain dismiss as trivia? The security of spent fuel, storing nuclear waste, or nuclear proliferation?
It’s all irrelevant, except in one case:
When we’re talking about these things where conservatives live.
Because, see, conservatives love the idea of nuclear power - lots of people do - but it’s when you get down to the nuts and bolts, the blah blah blah, that things get more complicated, and we all know how conservatives don’t do complications.
Particularly, though, if McCain were to win this election, I’m fully on board with the idea of building more nuclear power plants. But with a catch:
We should be building them in conservatives’ backyards.
Specifically, we should select the reddest communities in the nation where a nuclear power plant could feasibly be built, and build the first one right there.
If the blah blah blah is nothing to worry about, then surely conservatives won’t worry about it. Surely they’ll embrace the opportunity to live next door to a nuclear plant or a storage facility, where some of that spent nuclear blah blah winds up.
The can set the example of the rest of us, show us how prudence is weakness. And if there were to be a problem…
Well, who more deserving of it than those who insisted that prudence is weakness?
