Cue Peter Allen singing Everything Old Is New Again.  The Media Research Center and Eyeblast TV gives us a look at 30 years of progressive energy policy.  We’ve gone from apologetic surrender to malaise to sanctimoniously celebrating it, but otherwise it all has that familiar ring to it:

Now, of course, we hear Carter’s malaise speech wrapped in terms of global citizenship; of course we can’t expect to have climate-controlled homes and eat what we want, unless we get the world’s permission to do so! We can’t drill our own oil because it won’t solve anything, but let’s sue OPEC for not drilling more of theirs.What we have is two different approaches in economic policy. The Democrats, and especially Barack Obama, believe in constricted supply and so want to regulate demand. Conservatives believe in boosting supply through open markets and deregulation rather than leaving resources in the ground, while encouraging the innovation that will bring the next era in energy production. The Right also wants to use nuclear power, which even Europe’s Left has managed to survive without getting a case of the vapors.

But it’s the difference between the politics of scarcity and the politics of abundance that most defines the two parties. It’s why the Democrats have been such pessimists about, well, everything, and why Republicans like Ronald Reagan have optimism about America’s economic future. It didn’t hurt that Reagan turned out to be correct as well as Right.