Tex Wagner (aka State Senator) does his compadres no favors with his fanciful dreams of petroleum largesse. He does Virginia no favors. Tuesday, Dr. Chris Stolle visited the necessity of checking Frank's facts during a forum in Virginia Beach. The bottom-line fact: Frank has no time in the oil industry, unless you count days working on behalf of oil lobbyists or traveling to and around Norway.
Tex likes to tout his ocean engineering degree from the Naval Academy as a proof source of his petroleum expertise. So, he is qualified to build boats or structures; maybe even to blow them up. Dr. Stolle, Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates, ought to know that you don't go to a podiatrist when you require open heart surgery. Tex's superficial knowledge of the business world also shines through when he discusses the revenue boon that offshore drilling will provide Virginia. Dr. Stolle has grasped at Tex's straws and apparently been seduced into believing that his own small business experience qualifies him to discuss greater economic issues like the search for energy, the privatization of the ABC stores, and the Wall Street bailout (of which I will write tomorrow). Unfortunately, discontinuity of scale invalidates simplistic and accurate observations at the elementary level by introducing the dynamic reality of competing factors. Tex and members of his party who use this illusory façade are either ignorant or obfuscating. I have never claimed they are ignorant.
The Navy's position and words demonstrate diplomacy and patience for nuisance inquiries from constituents. That is how grownups do business. Two months ago, these words were interpreted by Stolle as drilling can be "done in conjunction with the Navy, at their invitation" and this week it has evolved to "let's talk up front and find a way to a solution." Dr. Stolle also indicates in the second, more recent segment of the video that he really understands what the result of a sit-down will be when he says, "All they have to do is say no, you can't drill there. There's no discussion." And that is what will result unless Virginia sends such unsophisticated representation to "negotiations" that they persist. Then the Navy will offer its solution; avoid confrontation and relocate resources to friendlier ports. Then those 2,500 jobs to which Stolle refers, which must count every gas station attendant in the state, will have to make up for the 5,000 to 15,000 jobs we lose in Hampton Roads as a result of a carrier or two going elsewhere. That's not even a zero sum game. But that is the way the free market works.
Here's some other bits of insight and experience that Tex Wagner lacks: time in the Pentagon, time in the White House, or even time on a high level Navy staff. Maybe that explains his naïve interpretation of naval diplomacy and correspondence. But somehow he has crafted a fairy tale at which candidates such as Stolle and even Bob McDonnell grasp. So let's do the jobs math for them using the best case for Virginia: (permanent loss of one carrier: -5000) + (transient gain from drilling: 2500) = net job loss of 2500. Best case. Maybe Tex ought to sit down with Delegate Joe Bouchard (D-Virginia Beach) who can fill him in on the nuances of this reality. That would be much more pleasant than the woodshed experiences Bouchard gives Dr. Stolle every time Stolle relies on Wagner's "facts."
Blue Virginia
