The Wall Street Journal must have an imp running around the office tying knots in knickers.

First, in The Price of Wind, the Editorial Board (I assume; it’s unsigned) inveighs about wind power at Nantucket Sound. It’s not because they’re NIMBY liberals, who have ferociously opposed it (seemingly for selfish aesthetic reasons), but because of the intricate subsidies and the cost of the power produced – double power from conventional sources.

There’s comic irony in this clean energy revolution getting devoured by the archaic regulations of previous clean energy revolutions. But given that taxpayers will be required to pay to build Cape Wind and then required to buy its product at prices twice normal rates, opponents might have more success if they simply pointed out what a lousy deal it is.

Then Homan Jenkins greets the reader with “Congratulations. You’re about to buy a fancy new Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt . . . for someone else.” He is shocked that the first wave of electric cars won’t cost $40,000 after all, but roughly 70% of that, because of – gasp! – subsidies!

And so a boondoggle is born. Last month, after a meeting with White House Car Czar Ron Bloom, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers produced a multipoint proposal for how the handouts can be made to flow more or less in perpetuity.

“In perpetuity“? Can you think of another transportation subsidy that’s perpetual (until the collapse that’s surely coming)? No, not Amtrak. Bigger than that.

How about roads, highways, streets, block after block of lovely downtown buildings leveled to make room for public surface parking or parking garages, and such? Do you think that our auto-centric communities happened naturally and spontaneously? Gimme a break!