It's been interesting to see the feedback to my column about oil drilling. Some people seem to think my argument is based on environmental concerns. It's not. It's all about politics.

The facts are that oil companies already have access to 68 million acres that they aren't drilling on, which has more oil than ANWR or the currently off-limit coastal areas. And ANWR and offshore drilling will not do anything to relieve the high gas prices for decades to come, if ever.

The reason Republicans latch on to these red herrings is that it's the only energy policy they can present that doesn't require any cost or sacrifice. It's the classic George Bush free-lunch con game meant to fool angry voters into thinking their elected officials are doing something about $4 gas, and still allow them to drive their Hummers and collect tax cuts.

And John "Straight Talk" McCain even admitted as much yesterday:

At a town hall in Fresno, CA, McCain admitted that the offshore drilling proposal he unveiled last week would probably have mostly “psychological” benefits, NBC/NJ’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy notes. “Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

Beneficial to his campaign maybe. Not beneficial to our continuing addiction to oil.

All of the resources and attention that are being wasted on this debate would be much better used working on a real energy policy with real impacts, not psychological ones. I do like McCain's $300 million electric car battery plan -- in theory. But with all the other pandering and flip-flops, I'm having a hard time believing he means it.

The sad part about this is that the Obama campaign may feel the need to oppose this kind of idea simply because McCain supports it.