'Sacrifice' Is Dirty Word in Energy Plans

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are each touting a plan to save America from the looming energy crisis, but they're providing too many sunny outlooks and not enough tough candor, Walter Shapiro writes in Salon. "The Ten Commandments of politics now began, 'Thou shalt not talk honestly to the American people about sacrifice,'" says Shapiro.

McCain is pushing detachment from foreign oil as key to his energy plan, but the Arizona senator talks little of the "wrenching transition" needed to free the US from Middle Eastern dependence. Obama offered a "gauzy" Olympic spot promising 5 million green-collar jobs with the help of global warming, but has mostly downplayed the unavoidable, painful sacrifices to come.

(More John McCain stories.)