Maybe the only surprising thing about Barack Obama’s latest statement about offshore drilling, for the moment, he’s for it, is that it took so long for him to change his mind. I would imagine that being in Florida, a coastal state that has recently also changed its collective mind about allowing more of its offshore resources to be explored and recovered, probably had something to do with this change in Barack’s mindset — at least for a minute. MyWay.com news reports via the AP:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday he would be willing to support limited additional offshore oil drilling if that’s what it takes to enact a comprehensive policy to foster fuel-efficient autos and develop alternate energy sources.

Shifting from his previous opposition to expanded offshore drilling, the Illinois senator told a Florida newspaper he could get behind a compromise with Republicans and oil companies to prevent gridlock over energy.

Republican rival John McCain, who earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling, has been criticizing Obama on the stump and in broadcast ads for clinging to his opposition as gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon. Polls indicate these attacks have helped McCain gain ground on Obama.

“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

“If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage – I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.“

Funny, only two days ago [h/t: DRJ @ Patterico.com] the following was reported by the AP’s Mike Glover in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Obama is pressed on the [offshore drilling] issue repeatedly on the campaign trail, but he refuses to budge, preferring to take pains to spell out his reasons.

“Please be in favor of offshore production,” Steve Hilton, a retired federal government worker in Lebanon, Mo., implored Obama during a tour of a diner there Wednesday.

“I’m in favor of solving problems,” Obama responded. “What I don’t want to do is say something because it sounds good politically.”

Obama seeks to turn the issue on its head, arguing that McCain and Bush are practicing the old politics of simply promising people something that’s symbolic without addressing the real problem. Discounting drilling, he proposes energy rebates, a crackdown on oil speculators who manipulate the market and a renewed focus on energy alternatives.

So, on Wednesday he’s against increased offshore drilling saying it won’t make a penny’s worth of difference to the price of gasoline. See and hear the great Barack.

And then on Friday — just a mere two days later — he’s changed his mind, again, and now feels that new offshore drilling should be a part of the overall energy picture. Hmmm, that’s sounds like John McCain’s position. The nutroots would be going batsh_t about this except that they are all for a do-or-say-anything-to-win-it-all strategy. Like us, they know that he’s lying — the problem is which is the lie — Wed. or Fri.? The Anchoress is actually cutting him a bit o’ slack, although I would like to wait and see if he reverses this new position when he next visits California. She writes:

So, I don’t know where it’s all going, but today, I am liking Obama a little better, because you know…you gotta be able to compromise. Wasn’t Bush’s “stubbornness” what the Dems hated about him so much? Maybe next week, Obama will really admit that the surge worked. After all, today someone in his campaign admitted that the card was indeed played.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air isn’t giving him any quarter intimating that Barack read the tea leaves, or maybe saw the sh_t storm energy-revolt tornado coming his way and did what politicians just naturally do:

So what happened in the following 48 hours to convince Obama to drill? He probably looked at the polls, especially in Florida. The Sunshine State had fiercely opposed off-shore drilling for decades, and would normally be a safe place to rail against Big Oil and talk about alternative energy sources. Not any longer, though; 60% of Floridians now support off-shore drilling, ten percent of whom acknowledge that their position has changed with the rise in gas prices.

The 48-hour flip-flop also arrives with a rebellion in the Senate Democratic caucus on drilling. The Gang of 10 threatens to undermine not only the leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, but also the policy stand of Obama in the presidential election. Their compromise proposal to open certain areas of the Atlantic seaboard and the eastern Gulf of Mexico threatened to put Obama on the fringe of his own party on drilling. He had little choice but to eat his words from Springfield on the stage in St Petersburg.

For an Internet savvy guy, you’d think that his webmaster would keep up with his changing positions a bit better as his anti-drilling platform is still in evidence as of this AM. Just so that won’t be forgotten when he does get around to making his Orwellian “adjustments”, here are screen captures of the header for his New Energy For America page where he says that offshore drilling is “a distracting idea which won’t reduce gas prices” and for one of his Community Blogs statements that denigrates offshore drilling saying that it “would merely prolong the failed energy policies we have seen from Washington for thirty years.”

We present, you decide — in Nov.

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama’s latest statement about offshore drilling, Barack Obama, offshore oil drilling

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