…is our buddy Steve Maley’s piece on the Obama administration’s energy policy appearing at RedState.com tonight.

It’s entitled “It’s A Strategy, Not A Conspiracy.” And it throws cold water on the concept that President Obama is a Manchurian Candidate doing the bidding of George Soros or whoever.

I think Obama is doing Soros’ bidding. But I think Steve is correct when he says the assault on domestic energy production is a conspiracy. Soros is in a position to make a lot of money off Obama’s policies, and the stink from the corruption inherent in this man being able to influence policy for his own ends – like for example getting a couple of oil rigs out of the Gulf of Mexico down to Brazil to do deepwater offshore work for Petrobras when he’s the single largest private shareholder in that company as a result of the moratorium – is as noxious as anything ever seen in American history.

But that in and of itself isn’t a conspiracy. It indicates cahoots, sure, but as Steve puts it forth there’s something simpler, deeper and more dangerous at play. Because the fact is, Soros and Obama are in ideological lockstep. They would be doing what they’re doing even if there was no money involved. Soros has given lavishly to socialist and communist groups across the world, nearly all of which are pushing a green energy agenda just like the one Obama is pushing with everything he has from the White House.

And the other side of this is Obama’s work to oppose the domestic production of conventional energy sources.

To wit, from Steve’s piece…

• President Obama said we should expect energy to become more expensive, and it has.
• He said he would focus on green energy over conventional sources, and he has.
• He said he would propose increased taxes on conventional energy producers (who, by the way, supply 82% of our daily energy needs), and he has.
• He has used the opportunity afforded by the BP Spill to begin dismantling the infrastructure of the Gulf of Mexico, the source of 30% of domestic oil and 12% of natural gas.
• He has canceled two Gulf of Mexico Lease Sales. 2011 will be the first year since 1967 without a Lease Sale in the Gulf. Future sales depend on completion of environmental reviews; who knows when that may happen?
• He has unleashed the EPA on American industry.
• The Department of the Interior no longer has a charge to support energy development. The pace of onshore leasing of public lands has decreased markedly.

This is not a case in which Obama is following orders from some shadowy figure. Obama is carrying out an agenda that was well-established long before he was inaugurated. It’s the Al Gore/Earth First/envirosocialist playbook, and it’s not a secret. We knew this is what we were getting when this man was elected; he has only made feints toward drilling, for example, to keep the wolves off his door. No administration in which Carol Browner has spent time as the climate/energy tsarina is going to allow the domestic oil industry to prosper; when Browner was the EPA head in the Clinton administration the rig count in the United States dipped to a modern low, and that wasn’t some coincidence.

But here’s what’s truly interesting. Obama has wanted the price at the pump to ascend to European-type levels, so that the economic fantasy that is his call for a million electric cars on the road by 2015 could come true. Well, it’s entirely possible he could get his wish.

Because with crude oil inching toward $100 per barrel amid the chaos in Libya, the ongoing revolt in Bahrain and the growing potential for something to happen in Saudi Arabia, where on March 11 a “Day Of Rage” is being called for, we are now entering the unthinkable territory in which Middle Eastern oil production could be sharply curtailed. If that happens, $100 crude is the good old days. So is $140. It’s possible $200 crude might be the good old days before this is over. At those prices, what economy we have left probably would demand cars which don’t run on oil, and while electric cars are a stupid response in comparison to, say, using liquified natural gas as a transportation fuel, they’re the response the government has picked.

But most of us recognize that electric cars are the automotive equivalent of those idiotic curly-q lightbulbs we’re already growing to hate. A car fueled off plugging into an outlet a lot like your cell phone is (only it’s worse; the car can’t run while it’s plugged in like your cell phone can) would require greatly different driving habits than Americans currently possess. For example, since your electric car doesn’t have the range to drive from New Orleans to Houston, you’re now going to have to use some other form of transportation to get there.

And Obama has an answer to that, too. It’s called high-speed rail, and he wants to spend some $500 billion linking 80 percent of the country with bullet trains like they’re building in China. Forget about the fact that passenger rail is currently a loser virtually everywhere in the world it’s being tried; it’s a winner when you can’t drive because the only car anybody can afford the fuel for is a little plastic Clown Car you have to plug in to a charging station made by GE every time you park it.

But we don’t have the power grid to support charging all these Clown Cars. So the answer is that the demand for power has to be curtailed. Electric rates “will necessarily skyrocket,” remember? The government is now going to pass out money hand over fist so people can weatherize their homes or put up solar panels. We’re hard at work building something called a “smart grid” which would enable some central authority, whether it’s the power company or the government who regulates it, to optimize energy use “for the greater good.”

And on, and on.

Examine the pieces to all this, and they do come together. But like Steve says – it’s not a conspiracy, it’s a strategy. This has been laid out for us by the Left for a long time. Every piece depends, you’ll notice, on the government subsidizing it because the market wouldn’t support it otherwise. That means the people who want the government controlling the means of production would have the kind of control they’ve only dreamed about other than in wartime, and they’ll have it forever.

It’s a strategy. It’s all laid out. It’s an economic disaster in the making and the American people won’t stand for it. But it’s what Obama is trying to do.

Don’t consider this a conspiracy. Conspiracies are secret. This is out in the open for anybody to see. All you have to do is look.