Goode gets caught telling a tall China oil-drilling tale.

In order to fulfill his twice-annual quota of saying something totally nuts, Rep. Virgil Goode informed a WCHV radio host last week that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba. I wish I knew what Goode was thinking when he says such foolish things. He’s doing no favors for himself, his district, or Republicans.

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

26 replies on “Goode gets caught telling a tall China oil-drilling tale.”

  1. The kernel I believe you were looking for is that Cuba has currently sold exploration rights to six different oil companies, with part of that area indeed closer to Florida than U.S. companies are allowed to drill. The important points to note are that 1) No companies are currently drilling, and that 2) None of the companies these concessionary blocs have been awarded to are from China/owned by the Chinese government.

    source (I figured Florida may actually know something for once): http://blogs.tampabay.com/buzz/2008/06/cheney-oops-on.html

  2. This rumor has been bouncing around the Right-Wing Echo Chamber for weeks, Cheney said it down in Houston, Fox News echoed it in their news propaganda feed, and now every Tom,Dick and Virgil are mouthing it because it fits in with their agenda…do the bidding of Big Oil, pander to the angry.

    China has established oil field services agreements with a bunch of the Caribbean producers, especially the ones that rightwingers like to poke with a stick – Cuba and Venezuela. But they are smart enough to know not to go driling in the Florida Straits, and they are not drilling.

    The real story should be: Why is China building, fixing and financing so many projects in the Caribbean basin when historically, these are our people? I was a recent guest at a Chinese-built sports stadium, visited a Chinese-renovated public hospital, and caught a ferry from a Chinese-built dock on an island that Ron Reagan thought critical enough to lose American blood and treasure over. Iraq isn’t the only thing that GWBush&Co. have managed to f-up.

  3. Maybe Goode thinks it’s true, and didn’t realize the story had been retracted?

    I miss the comment preview thingie.

    EDIT: But I like the new edit thingie.

  4. I believe Virgil Goode says things that he thinks people want to hear, and that he thinks he is supposed to say.

    Having said that, he is a lot more clever than most people give him credit for. His non-races against Al Weed are an example. He never came out, campaigned appeared anywhere there might be an unfriendly audience. Then he could come out and do his ‘aw, shucks’ routine, go to a debate, and win 60-40. His country boy act pleases his base, but I have been seeing through it for some time now.

    Come to think of it, I have also just described another Central Virginia politician: Independent Republican Watkins Abbitt.

    If you can’t find them, you can’t criticize them in public, except in the newspapers.

  5. There have been some interesting walk-backs of the China drilling rumor (TPM has the best, I think). But what I’d really love to see is a study of the campaign that’s gotten every monkey with a computer up in arms about not drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Drilling there – by all objective accounts – will have no impact on the price of gas next week, next month, next year. Yet the fervor with which Right Blogistan has adopted the cause would make you think that it was an existential issue. Clearly these brainiacs didn’t come up with this all on their own. Would love to see it sourced.

  6. Can we finish sourcing the notion that Gilmore *didn’t* ruin Virginia during his four-year tenure first? I’m way more fascinated by that one.

  7. My buddy’s cousin loves to forward all those whacked out right wing talking point emails. He just sent me one with all these whacky diagrams from Larry Craig (which also made me laugh) that spout how China is drilling at this very moment. And then pegs all recent gas hikes on Dems since they’ve held Congress since 2006 and won’t allow ANWR drilling. The email contradicts itself in numerous places, but it’s the kind of thing that this guy always forwards out. He thinks it “proves” something. I can’t wrap my head around how someone could think these emails clearly point anything out.

  8. So Bubby, as stated in the original headline, Cuba does have some designs off the coasts of Cuba? If I read you right, Virgil isn’t so far off base. It is a shame that our government hasn’t been able to make diplomatic headway with Cuba over the last 40 years.

  9. Cuba does have some designs off the coasts of Cuba? If I read you right, Virgil isn’t so far off base.

    Uh, well, not quite, Tom. :) I have designs on my first million, but you’d be pretty far off base if you said I was a millionaire. :)

  10. Tom: Have you ever heard the phrase, “nature abhors a vacuum”? It applies to business opportunities in Cuba, and your mind. If Virgil fills your vacuum, then it must be nature’s will, and a successful sale by Virgil. But that don’t make it right, it just makes it easy.

  11. So Bubby, as stated in the original headline, Cuba does have some designs off the coasts of Cuba?

    According to the AP article quoted in the Tampa Bay blog post linked by Joe above, non-Chinese firms are conducting exploratory drilling off Cuba’s coast, while China is conducting exploratory drilling on land in the western part of Cuba. Clear as mud.

  12. No Jon, no one is conducting “exploratory drilling” off Cuba. Read again.

    Foreign oil companies are conducting “exploration” – which is the the application of advanced non-invasive geophysics to map the geology, and evaluate the oil play. You don’t go drilling willy-nilly in these deep offshore waters without having a good feel for where, and how.

    I also don’t believe that the Chinese have the kind of skill it will take to work this play, Petrobras is the deep water, king-daddy company to do this. The Chinese will likely bankroll the job – with our walmart dollars and a significant share of the oil.

  13. Either we’re reading different articles or I’m having a particularly obtuse moment, because I haven’t read anything about “advanced non-invasive geophysics” — but I’ll take your word for it. :)

  14. Whoa Bubby- vacuum in my mind?

    “China has established oil field services agreements with a bunch of the Caribbean producers, especially the ones that rightwingers like to poke with a stick – Cuba and Venezuela.”

    If these weren’t your words, simply put quotes around it. Damn- you wrote it, not me. Since you now see that I was just asking for clarification, I’ll not take your affront personally!

  15. I don’t think Bubby meant that your mind is empty, Tom. :) At least, I assumed he meant that all minds are vacuums, in the sense that we’re all missing certain information that we’d like to gather, and we’ll fill it with the information that’s at hand.

  16. All these bruised feelings…look, when someone says, “Virgil isn’t so far off base”, it sets me afire. The guy is a walking illusion. Under that aw-shucks, good old boy shell there is a very smart, very well educated guy who has chosen to use his considerable talents to misguide, misrepresent, and manipulate his vulnerable brethren because it serves his purposes and provides him with a comfortable living.

    There was a time when I was content to write this off to “natural order” and bad Karma – but then I saw what could happen when professional criminal hustlers like Mitch Wade, and Dick Cheney find a resource like Virgil Goode. He becomes a high-profile, sharp little tool, and a bad reflection on the rest of us.

    In the good ‘ol days our sterner fore bearers would simply have rounded up a posse, rode over to his plantation, put him on a rail, and escorted him to the state line. Then came the rule-of-law and our comfortable slumber. But the roar of our economy being sucked dry, and the burning-rubber stench of war have awakened me in bad humor. Virgil has to go – if only to make an example for all the other budding hustlers that there is price to pay for their deceit. We won’t find salvation for our oil addiction in the Florida straits; we won’t even find relief, and Virgil Goode knows it.

  17. Damn Bubby, that is some inspired writing… wow.

    Let’s throw the slackers out of office… wish we could vote for “none of the above” in every election. This time the Goode congress-critter has an opponent, but it is not always the case, and at least a vacant office can’t embarrass us the way Goode does.

  18. Yeah well Scott, the 5th District has great alternative to Goode this time around – Tom Perriello – he’s been working some of the most benighted corners of the world, which should put him in good stead for dealing with the malaise in Southside!

    Rural Virginians need to think long and hard about their political affiliations as the nation and the Commonwealth turn Democratic. The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but not necessarily, if it is Virgil’s wheel. He’s already the red-headed mule of the 110th Congress.

  19. I’m very disappointed that Al Weed chose not to run this year. Sources inside the hallowed halls of the Daily Progress had confirmed that the editors (finally!) worked up the cahones to run the headline I offered them two years ago: “Goode smokes Weed again.”

    Bluster and puff up your chest all you want, Bubby. Goode will roll over Perriello to another landslide victory. And watch the papers in Southside. Virgil is bringing home the bacon… again.

  20. Is Virgil bringing home some more of that Duke Cunningham/MZM pork, or just the personal-size illegal contribution bacon-bits pork?

    Martinsville is still trying to barf up Virgil’s last load of bacon – that $5 Million MZM building they got stuck with.

  21. Was not Goode helpful in some small part for bringing home the bacon in Cville as well (NGIC)? I’m in agreement with the “kick ’em all out” sentiment. Goode is no different than the majority of our “representatives” in our Government. As long as Americans continue to be consumed with greed, politicians will pander to the majority of voters that are always seeking to gain.

  22. “Rural Virginians need to think long and hard about their political affiliations as the nation and the Commonwealth turn Democratic.”

    Precisely why people should look to an alternative to the Dems. Both parties have walked hand-in-hand down the same path that other failed “empires” have. So the answer now is for everyone to goose-step together in Democratic bliss?

  23. The pork has flowed pretty freely in most areas; too bad it didn’t all go to Southside! Maybe those folks should move to Charlottesville and work at the NGIC- or they could commute to Danville and work at IKEA’s new furniture factory. By the way, what was Goode’s stand on NAFTA? A fair number of Dan River jobs were lost to Mexico.

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