Drill. Now.

One would think that in a world full of the likes of Hugo Chavez, Vlad Putin, Mahmoud Achmadinnerjacket, the Saudi monarchy etc - all sitting atop or in control of vast underground oceans of oil - that ramping up US production of oil would be a no-brainer. But politics tends to mean the removal of common sense from most debates, and the debate over drilling for oil in US lands and seas is no exception.

Opponents of drilling would have us sue OPEC rather than compete with it. They lament the lack of oil drilling ships and rigs as if we can't just build more to meet demand. They say whatever drilling we start now won't have any impact for years, as if the mere change in posture on the part of the world's largest economy and most dominant state alone won't have any impact in the short run. And they will greet the good news of US oil companies re-entering war-torn Iraq for the first time in years as evidence of conspiracy rather than evidence of recovery, citing "big oil's" interest in Iraq as evidence that, see, we really did fight the war for oooooooil.

Leaving aside the bare fact that had we fought in Iraq purely to keep the world's supply of oil from falling into the hands of an entirely hostile, anti-democratic regime or alliance of like regimes - we didn't fight in Iraq for oil, but it would have been utterly defensible from a geostrategic point of view had we done so - we wouldn't have to fight wars for oil in the first place if we had sensible policies. If we allowed ourselves to a) compete with OPEC on a more even footing by opening up more domestic exploration and drilling and b) allowed a more sensible approach to the construction of nuclear power plants and c) built oil refineries to keep pace with demand and d) cleared up the current system that demands a dizzying patchwork of fuel blends across the nation which drives up gas prices and strains refining capacity, we wouldn't be in the energy fix that we're in.

But we are, and the Democrats are a) standing in the way of opening up on and offshore drilling on flimsy grounds and b) now more and more openly calling for the nationalization of oil companies as a response. They are, in other words, taking the Hugo Chavez route literally and philosophically. Literally, in that Chavez nationalized oil in Venezuela, and philosophically, in that like Chavez the Democrats blame America and American companies for the world's ills, in this case blaming US oil companies for effects that are far beyond their reach, from the subsidization of gasoline in emerging economies such as India and China to the slide of the dollar. US oil companies created neither of those influences on the price of a barrel of oil, and they didn't create the current no-drill policies that dominate US politics - but Democrats are blaming US oil companies for the outcome nevertheless, out of equal parts economic ignorance and political malice. They would rather Americans suffer the effects of high gas prices if it means they can push to transform the US economy toward their preferred ends of unproven and in some cases even more environmentally destructive so-called green technology, and if it means they can push "windfall" taxes on US oil companies that will end up making them even less competitive against state-run oil conglomerates and cartels overseas.

The obvious short-term solution to the price of oil and the economic and national security problems that price creates is to increase US production, and if we have to build more ships and rigs to do it, then we should build them. We were once a country that saw any problem as a potential opportunity, and here the opportunity is obvious: Ship and rig construction means jobs, from steel-producing rust belt states and shipyard states to high tech corridors and multinational management firms. We should build and we should explore and we should drill. That is the short-term solution; the long-term solution is to develop alternative energy sources and technologies. As usual, the Democrats have this entirely backwards, and Barack Obama is their wrong-way standard bearer.