Liveblog of T. Boone Pickens interview with Sean Hannity

I heard on the way home that Sean Hannity was interview T. Boone Pickens on the Pickens Plan. Since I was in the car, I couldn’t post directly to the internet, so I had to write it down and copy it now. As Pickens is a Republican supporter (he sponsored the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth), I can now look in hindsight that Hannity would throw softballs at Pickens. But I was expecting at least some questions that were more critical than were asked.

You can read the liveblog after the cut…

4:09 – Another crisis? Can we say that there’s no reason why people can’t just adjust instead of saying it’s a crisis. And the only place where gas is $4.50 is in NYC, Sean.

4:09 – McCain wants the Republican “do-everything plan”. I’ve already said how this is a bad idea.

4:10 – What will replace natural gas? What about nuclear? Or coal? There’s no mention of why Pickens is against these sources of energy.

4:11 – Sean is hitting Pickens on domestic supplies of oil. Good idea… but Pickens agrees with Sean, but Pickens not actually bringing this up in his discussions with Sean.

4:12 – What does all those fleet of buses have in common? They’re government vehicles. Pickens wants to mandate people to use natural gas. More government mandates, this time in two categories:

1. Require the government to buy natural gas vehicles
2. Require all fleet vehicles to be natural gas

These mandates would be something that Pickens would profit from immensely, as he OWNS a natural gas fleet refueling company.

4:15 – What’s the biggest problem? Leadership? Cheap oil is not the problem, the problem is that there’s no leadership on keeping oil cheap, or conversely having people accept their policies. The need for leadership is for someone to get all of the big oil, big environment, and big government obstacles out of people’s way. That will lower gas more than anything else.

4:17 – The $700 billion dollar transfer is such a complete neo-mercantilist policy. What about cheap natural gas? Do you think that cheap natural gas is going to stay that way too, or will there become a price explosion with that as well?

4:18 – Pickens hits on the big point. People ARE cutting back. That will work alot better than government mandates. But Sean doesn’t ask about this either.

4:19 – What are the costs of transitioning to natural gas?

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Overall, Hannity didn’t ask any tough questions. I would’ve thought there would be a little bit more hard hitting questions than this interview, but considering it was about 10 minutes long and one minute was spent on banter and a replay of his commercial. Hannity was more interested in pimping his own plan than being critical of Pickens.

Honestly, this is why Rush Limbaugh is better than Hannity. Limbaugh doesn’t want to have to kiss ass to any guests, so he doesn’t have any on. Because Hannity has to keep the guests coming in (because it’s the format that he’s chosen), he be seen as too critical.

I wonder if Sean even knows of the criticisms that I (and others) have discovered. From the interview, it appears that Sean didn’t even do any research on the topic to begin with. Dissapointing to say the least.