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UPDATE September 25! NRO points us to senator Jim DeMint’s blog here: “We’ve just been alerted that despite House Democrats relenting on extending bans on offshore drilling and oil shale in the continuing resolution (CR) appropriations bill, Democrat Senate Leader Harry Reid has decided to sneak an extension of the oil shale ban through as Congress fights over the financial bailout. Oil shale in America’s West is estimated to hold be between 800 billion and 2 trillion barrels of oil — that is more than three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia alone.”  (Underscoring Forum’s.)

Probably the election will not be decided on which candidate gets the essentials of political economy right, but which candidate inspires the greater confidence in the voter. That is just as well because senator McCain is still getting his footing in economics.

Here is the good senator’s inspired proposal to hire Andrew Cuomo as SEC chief - - from Michelle Malkin here today:

“Last night, John McCain said this on 60 Minutes about who should run the SEC:

‘(PELLEY ) I’m curious. If you wanna fire Chris Cox, the chairman of the SEC, who would you replace him with?

(MCCAIN) This may sound a little– unusual, but I’ve admired– Andrew Cuomo. I think he is somebody who could– restore some credibility, lend some bipartisanship– to this effort.

(PELLEY) He’s a Democrat.

(MCCAIN) Oh, yes.

(PELLEY) He served in the cabinet of President Clinton.

(MCCAIN) Yes. And he did a good job. And he has respect. And he has prestige.’

A good job??? Cuomo??? Maybe McCain needs to read this.

Yes, this is the left-wing Village Voice on Andrew Cuomo:

‘Andrew Cuomo, the youngest Housing and Urban Development secretary in history, made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down, and he legalized what a federal judge has branded ‘kickbacks’ to brokers that have fueled the sale of overpriced and unsupportable loans. Three to four million families are now facing foreclosure, and Cuomo is one of the reasons why.’”

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NRO’s Stephen Spruiell reports this evening here that –

“While all eyes are diverted to the mess on Wall Street, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are attempting to extend the ban on offshore drilling, which is set to expire October 1. This just in from Jeb Hensarling’s office:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, today issued the following statement after House Democrats released a discussion draft of a continuing resolution that included a provision to actively and permanently prevent exploration of nearly 90 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf and block energy production in the Inter-Mountain West:

‘On October 1, the bans on offshore drilling and oil shale recovery will expire, enabling us to develop more American energy. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi and Democrats in the House have made clear that they will continue to actively prevent exploration from occurring.’” (Underscoring Forum’s.)

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The Jerusalem Post (relayed by Drudge) quotes here David Wurmser, former aide to vice-president Dick Cheney, that president Bush “will not attack Iran to halt its nuclear weapons program before his term ends in January.”

“Wurmser said his certainty that no US action was in the works had to do with the fact that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now clearly had the upper hand in the administration in her struggle with Cheney. Rice and Cheney have represented two different schools of thought in the Bush administration, with Cheney advocating a tough line against Iran, often brandishing the possibility of a military strike, while Rice advocated letting the diplomatic process and sanctions run their course.

According to Wurmser, who served as Cheney’s senior adviser on national security affairs, specializing in the Middle East, terrorism, proliferation and strategy from 2003-2007, the prevalent feeling toward Iran now was that diplomacy and sanctions were working, and that this was creating a trend toward moderation in Teheran. He said the thinking in Washington had gone from advocating regime change to advocating Iranian ‘behavior modification.’

Wurmser, once considered one of the key neo-conservative voices in the administration, and who now heads Delphi Global Analysis, a firm that conducts political risk analysis for financial institutions, said that currently the hope in the administration was not to replace the rule of the ayatollahs, but rather that a ‘Gorbachev’ might emerge in Iran who - like Mikhail Gorbachev did in the Soviet Union - would substantially change the regime’s polices from within.

And as far as the timeline was concerned, Wurmser said Bush did not feel the urgency to strike Iran now, believing that there was still sufficient time before Teheran achieved nuclear capabilities.”

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Conservatives are in a hard policy place. The president is, to put it as charitably as one can, ever more aloof from governing - - and certainly conflict averse, whether with the Other Team, or here and here with the enemies of our Republic.  If the Democrat leadership of the House passes an appropriations measure with a continuing bar to offshore drilling and to oil-shale extraction, it is unlikely that this president will veto it and run the risk of the uproar from a “government shutdown” nor carry the fight for more energy to the public. The House Republicans will have to stop the ban extension if it is to be stopped.  But the good news is that we have the House Republican Study Committee in the Congress, and governor Sarah Palin in the presidential contest.

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