(Cross-posted at Ecoble.com)

You may well be wondering - why the heck is Nancy Pelosi pushing through a bill that allows for offshore drilling? Isn't that against everything we're supposed to stand for? Is this another example of business-as-usual betraying core Democratic principles?

Alas, sometimes green areas fall in grey areas. Here's the scoop:

Where's the fire? Why rush it through now?

The offshore drilling ban, in place now for decades, has a "sunset provision". It has to be renewed every few years.

Unless a bill is passed, the ban expires on September 30. At which point... Bush could immediately hand out leases anywhere he wants to.

So, we need a bill, and a bill that can pass, by September 30....

In a press conference a few minutes ago, NY Congressman Charles Rangel, one of Hillary's key supporters, brought the entire New York delegation on board for Obama:

The Harlem Democrat said the endorsement is being made ahead of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's Saturday announcement that she is withdrawing from the race and endorsing Obama "in order to accommodate those members of Congress who will be unable to return to Washington on Saturday.''

At a press conference held at outside the offices of the Democratic National Committee, Rangel acknowledged "me and some 200 others'' have called Clinton since Tuesday, urging no further delay in withdrawing from the race and endorsing Obama.

The administration is trotting out a shiny new narrative on Iraq: Petraus's Anbar Awakening has brought around the Sunni Tribes, who are now our allies in a battle against the wicked excesses of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

But what if everything we've heard about AQI is as overblown as the original scare-stories about Saddam's WMD?

Andrew Tilghman, a former Iraq correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper, has an article that just hit the Washington monthly that takes an in-depth look at just how big a movement AQI really is - and the answer isn't pretty. Particularly since the Anbar Awakening strategy is based around arming Sunnis to fight AQI, it's pretty important to know just how much AQI there is... and what we're really arming those tribal leaders for. If AQI is "is a microscopic terrorist organization," then what will the Sunnis do with all those guns?