It's near to becoming official

Yes, it appears that Walt Minnick is close to joining the Party of No. He's pretty much a de facto member, given his voting record. He put out a press release citing various reasons why he's voting against the Waxman-Markey energy bill, and said:

For all of those reasons, I must vote ‘no.’

I'll give Minnick a little credit for not calling it a "cap and tax" bill, which is the official name bestowed by the Gopasaurs in the Party of No.

President Obama described it as a jobs bill, as well as an energy bill.

The energy bill that passed the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation in our economy. It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy – everything from wind, solar, and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal. It will spur new energy savings, like the efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. And most importantly, it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.

Make no mistake: this is a jobs bill.

Idaho's unemployment rate went from 2.7% in 2008 to 6.4% in 2009. The two biggest employers in Idaho are now St. Luke's and Wal-Mart. Seems to me a jobs bill and an energy policy are just what we need.

Minnick cites some decent reasons, but I think they're window dressing. He's subordinating the possible to the perfect to give himself cover for voting against it. "Because we can't have this other, better way of doing it, I'll just forgo doing anything helpful." Politically expedient in Idaho, yes, but not helpful. I think Walt is subordinating the needs of the country to his political future in true Party of No fashion.