The Daily News and the Post today both led with goofy excitable front page stories on Michael Bloomberg's threat to cover our bridges and skyscrapers with hideous power-generating windmills (both front pages: "WINDY CITY"). Both mention that Bloomberg dined with millionaire windpower enthusiast T. Boone Pickens. Page Six also reports on how Rudy Giuliani ignored the advice of Pickens, "a leading advocate for alternative energy," during his failed presidential run. Pickens just did a conference call with Harry Reid. And he just met with McCain. And he's got a book out! The oil billionaire-turned-pseudo-environmentalist is everywhere. And so we ask, upon learning that Obama's met with him too: what the hell? Why is everyone playing nice with the evil old jackass? We'd expect him to informally advise Giuliani. Pickens, the old oilman, is a longtime funder of Republicans. He very very famously is responsible for those Swift Boat people who lied about John Kerry. He's spent the last 30 years ensuring that his business-friendly Republican friends remained in power, and now the old man spends millions pushing... wind power? Alternative energy? It almost sounds like environmentalism! Why waste time trying to convince Republicans to... act like liberals?? The oilman has given up oil, you see. Now he's investing millions in wind power and natural gas. Both are less environmentally terrible than petroleum, but his magic windmill plan does not seem to us to be very viable. Because there's a lot of wind in those big empty plains states, yes, but not any people. So transporting this power across the entire country adds even more to this power's price tag and enriches T. Boone and his investors yet more! But merits of his plan aside, the question is why Democrats like Reid and Obama are giving the jackass the time of day and legitimizing him as anything other than a zillionaire who thinks the presidency and now the energy policy of this country are his to buy. Start a think tank or something dude, don't just get all "rogue vigilante billionaire crisis-solver"! And further, why the hell aren't anyone but random columnists and Cato Institute libertarians examining his plan seriously and reporting on his conflicts of interest? Hell in a week's worth of stories entirely about how important famous elected officials are meeting with Pickens, only today's Obama stories even mention the Swift Boat Veterans. What the hell, T. Boone Pickens. Just because you're rich doesn't mean everyone has to take you seriously.