Over the years, Hillary Clinton has voted against subsidies and mandates for corn ethanol in the Senate a number of times. If you know anything about corn ethanol, you know that’s a good thing.
When Clinton released her (otherwise excellent) energy plan this week, it contained a whole boatload of … subsidies and mandates for corn ethanol. That is, conversely, a bad thing.
Obama’s campaign took the opportunity to bash Clinton for it — not for switching from a sensible position to a more politically convenient but substantively wrong position, but for … having the sensible position in the first place. How can we trust that she’s truly committed to this awful position? they asked.
This prompted an explanation from Clinton that is nothing short of tortured:
This is what we’ve come to in the strange world of ethanol politics: a presidential candidate furiously trying to explain away her previous good sense. Sigh. I can’t wait until the Iowa primary is over.
