President Obama coming to Alaska.

President Obama on Elmendorf Air Force base in 2009.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:  

President Barack Obama will visit Alaska in August, Sen. Lisa Murkowski told Alaska legislators Wednesday in a joint legislative session. 

And this trip, she said, appears to be a real visit, not simply a gas stop at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson to fill up Air Force One as it travels between Washington and Asia. 

Murkowski, during her annual address to the Legislature, said she had been told about the trip by Secretary of State John Kerry while discussing Arctic issues with him. She said that the White House considers Alaska to be among the states the president has visited, but that he’s never actually left JBER. “He’s never been off base,” she said.

 Hey maybe now Sarah Palin can criticize him to his face.

Yeah, like that's going to happen.

Well Palin may be too intimidated to say anything directly but Senator Murkowski is certainly fanning the flames of dissension already. 

“I have never been a good alarmist, but it is becoming harder and harder to conclude that this administration’s long-term plan is anything other than to starve our Trans-Alaska Pipeline System of new oil,” Murkowski said in the text of her speech provided to reporters. 

She gave no reason why the Obama administration would want to do that but said, “It sure looks like their goal is to shut down our pipeline once and for all -- to see it decommissioned and dismantled,” she said. 

While Murkowski defended her claim about the president’s intent to shut down the pipeline as the “reality” that Alaska lives with, other legislators said they were surprised to hear such a confrontational tone.

First off the President has never said anything about shutting down the Alaska pipeline. And  secondly he would be fighting a Republican controlled Senate and House if he tried.

So essentially Murkowski is full of baloney.

Having said that I think that ultimately yes in the future we will certainly see the Alaska pipeline, and in fact all oil pipelines shut down as we move away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner renewable energy sources.

However that is certainly not something that will be done in the last two years of an Obama administration.

Personally I think that the President should ask Joe Lieberman to accompany him on this trip.

 You never can tell when you might need a Lieberman to run interference.

P.S. Just so you know the President is probably coming up here just to see me. Because, though you may not have heard, according to the Palin-bots and Right wing loons I have been a paid operative of his for years now.

Though apparently nobody bothered to tell my bank account that.