It’s Wall Street Journal day here on Planet Gore!

(And if you haven’t seen the excerpt from Justice Clarence Thomas’s Wriston lecture, the WSJ editorial page has an excerpt here. The best Wriston Lecture since VDH’s, in my opinion.)

Greg highlighted below the Journal item on the 20 billion barrels of oil that supposedly sit off the Cuban coast, a piece that contained an odd throwaway:

It wouldn’t much help presidential candidates’ plans to reduce U.S. dependence on Mid-East oil, though. Due to the existing embargo, U.S. firms will be shut out of any Cuban oil exploration projects, and any future exports. In the meantime, Spain’s Repsol and Brazil’s Petrobras are leading the charge to tap the deep-water finds.

So, uh, we have to actually drill the stuff, or we’re “shut out”? Isn’t oil a global commodity? If, say, the Dominican Republic is getting all its oil from Cuba instead of, say, Mexico, doesn’t that mean there is more Mexican oil for Uncle Sam to buy? I mean, I’m just asking . . .