Howard the Duck trips me out. He's banging on Dick Cheney chairing Dubya's commission on energy a couple years ago, but it seems he had a very similar, private-meeting group on energy his own self in the state of Vermont. I just posted about this on the Wienerboard, so I thought I would share that with you all here.

This reminds me a lot of the old deal people used to put to Hogan. Yeah, he's a politician, he holds people down, he's a bastard. That young kid, Hunter, deserves a push.

Oops, now it's Trips who is getting the Hogan rip.

I figure that Hogan, and Trips and every other guy who has carried a Fed has been in this position, as have most executives. Just like Bush needed some feedback about how to do energy, Dean needed it. In all likelihood, if we checked 50 states over the last 20 years and the Fed (and for that matter, other countries), we'd find similar commissions founded for similar issues, be it energy, transportation, resources and other stuff.

and I suspect there are people (although I don't think Bush's commission is guilty of this) who have benefited from these commissions. Did I mention that neither's energy commission stopped the lights from going out last August. But Howard the Duck was closest to it!

and of course, Dean, like Hunter, is going to say he never did it, but that Bush, like Hogan, did.

and of course, there ARE some benefits to such commisions. Contributions to PACs for Dean include names like Robert Young, CEO of Central Vermont Public Service Corporation.