Skeletons in the closet

The problem for Senator Barack Obama is that even when he is opening the closet to let Senator McCain's skeletons escape, a few of his own skeletons escape with them.

In an attempt to paint McCain as beholden to the oil companies, one of Obama's skeletons crept out of the closet and now is biting Obama in the ankles:

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (AP) - Democratic candidate Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain on Tuesday for taking a page out of "the Cheney playbook" on energy, overlooking his own support of oil-friendly policies that the unpopular vice president helped to craft.

Obama voted for a 2005 energy bill backed by President Bush that included billions in subsidies for oil and natural gas production, a measure for which Vice President Dick Cheney played a major role. McCain opposed the bill, saying at the time that it included billions in unnecessary tax breaks for the oil industry.

The Obama campaign has said the Illinois senator supported the legislation because it included huge investments in renewable energy. Yet Democrats long have characterized the 2005 energy bill as being written by Cheney. One of them, Democratic primary rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, criticized Obama earlier this year for backing the "Dick Cheney lobbyist energy bill."

So it is Obama that supported the gigantic tax breaks for the oil companies, not McCain.

Isn't that special.