Uncle of NIMBY-Watch

Teddy Kennedy has picked an unfortunate time to fight the effort to break his monopoly as Massachusetts' primary source of wind power. Or rather, the fact that he is fighting it is suddenly even more politically embarassing now than it has been to date.

The fight is over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Nantucket that would play hell with Teddy's private playground be bad for the state, or something. This is the same project that Bobby Jr. was opposing last December.

Kennedy rejected suggestions that he doesn't like the wind farm because it would be near his Cape home, and said the project probably wouldn't be visible from the Kennedy compound. He said he's against the project because it would create a range of environmental and navigational problems and would hurt tourism, one of the area's key industries.

Uh, huh. As I remarked when Bobby was yapping about it, I'm pretty sure Uncle Ted wouldn't be raising such concerns if the wind farm was going to be located off, say, South Padre Island or some other not-around-the-corner-from-Hyannisport locale.

It's amusing to see that Greenpeace is after him, too:

Environmental groups have launched an aggressive advertising and lobbying campaign to persuade Democrats to abandon Kennedy and back a promising source of renewable energy. If the wind farm becomes a reality, advocates say, it could provide three-fourths of the Cape and Islands' energy needs and could set an example for the nation.

The maneuver to stop the wind farm ''is clearly a backroom deal, and they're going to get called publicly on it," said John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace USA. ''The Democrats are going to kill the first big offshore wind farm in the United States because of their relationship with Ted Kennedy."

It'll be interesting to see if this publicity, coupled with the current political climate, will be enough to plant the windmills in Teddy's back yard. The cynic in me says probably not, that he and his pals will retreat publicly for a bit and then find another way to kybosh the project.

UPDATE: A modest proposal. And he said, "NITBY". Heh, heh.