(Olbermann:) This morning [McCain] reverses himself, at least an eight-year position on off-shore drilling. Tonight, the President insists on off-shore drilling. ... Was McCain knowingly Bush's stalking horse on this, or is this (just) a coincidence? (Alter:) It's synchronized flip-flopping, with Charlie Christ (R), the governor of Florida, who also flip-flopped on this. So now they're in league with the Boss. ... They're going to try to throw the onus on Congress to make Congress seem like it's standing in the way of reducing gas prices. But you have to accept that oil companies are telling the truth when they say that this will somehow lower prices at the pump, when it takes many years -- some people say as long as ten years -- for the result of this off-shore drilling to turn up. And actually if you look at the pricing by oil companies, what they usually do is leave the leases vacant until they can make big money. So they don't pump a lot in order to keep prices low; they pump a lot in order to exploit high prices. ... So it's no surprise that McCain has flip-flopped on his support for a windfall profits tax. Now he wants to give [Exxon] even more profits, as if that's somehow going to lead to more exploration. (Olbermann:) The cheering there at the end of that clip was not for [McCain's] saying the price of gas will go down. The people were cheering because the price of gas is going to stay the same or go up. (Alter:) You heard McCain say there's no environmental threat during hurricanes because of this supposedly new-fangled drilling apparatus on the continental shelf. It's true that it is better; it is safer. But we've had 80 spills in the last few years. The idea that there's no environmental threat is simply wrong. That's why so many Republicans in states like Florida and California have also been against drilling out there.