Jeff Jacoby nails Senator Edward Kennedy in the Boston Globe for double hypocrisy in his opposition to the wind farm proposed for offshore waters near his property on Cape Cod:

Hypocrisy #1:

''The vast majority of Americans share our commitment to basic fairness," he lectured his fellow senators last May, when Republicans were threatening to trigger the ''nuclear option" —— changing the Senate's rules to prevent judicial nominations from being filibustered. ''They agree that there must be fair rules, that we should not unilaterally abandon or break those rules in the middle of the game."

There was nothing clandestine about that no—filibuster threat. Senate Republicans had been discussing it publicly for more than two years. Nevertheless, the senator from Massachusetts blasted the idea. ''Every child," he thundered, ''knows that you don't change the rules in the middle of the game."

But, it turns out, Kennedy's antipathy to furtive rules changes and backroom power plays stops at the water's edge —— specifically, the waters of Nantucket Sound, which separates Cape Cod (where the Kennedy family has an oceanfront compound in Hyannis Port) from the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. A shoal in the center of Nantucket Sound is where Cape Wind Associates hopes to build the nation's first offshore wind farm —— an array of 130 wind turbines capable of generating enough electricity to meet 75 percent of the Cape and Islands' energy needs, without burning any oil or emitting any pollution. The turbines would be miles from any coastal property, barely visible on the horizon. In fact, Cape Wind says they would be farther away from the nearest home than any other electricity generation project in Massachusetts.

Hypocrisy #2:

The wind farm proposal is supported by the leading environmental organizations, and they never expected to be sandbagged by one of their legislative heroes. Even if Kennedy would prefer to see Cape Wind plant its windmills in somebody else's sailing grounds, he has always claimed to support the development of wind power (''I strongly support renewable energy, including wind energy, as a means of reducing our dependence on foreign oil and protecting the environment" —— Cape Cod Times, Aug. 8, 2003). And what happened to all those righteous words about not throwing out the rulebook in the middle of the game?

Ed Lasky 5 07 06