From most accounts that I’ve heard, Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer gave an excellent speech last night. Unfortunately, I was airborne on the way to Denver and was unable to attend.

Here is the full speech:

Below, I’ll parse the majority of Schweitzer’s speech, picking out some of the good and the bad. There were plenty of high points, but there is also enough troubling language to give me pause before praising it wholesale.

A generation later, we face a great new challenge, a world energy crisis that threatens our economy, our security, our climate and our way of life. And until we address that energy crisis, our problems will only get worse. For eight long years, the White House has led us in the wrong direction. And now Senator McCain wants four more years of the same.

A great start. Tying McCain to Bush on an issue where he has clearly failed is great strategy.

Can we afford four more years? Is it time for a change? When do we need it? And who do we need as the next President of the United States of America? That’s right. Barack Obama is the change we need!

Easy applause line. I like the messaging that we “can’t afford” four more years of the McSame old shit.

Right now, the United States imports about 70 percent of its oil from overseas. At the same time, billions of dollars that we spend on all that foreign oil seems to end up in the bank accounts of those around the world who are openly hostile to American values and our way of life. This costly reliance on fossil fuels threatens America and the world in other ways, too. CO2 emissions are increasing global temperatures, sea levels are rising and storms are getting worse.

I don’t like the bit about “those around the world who are openly hostile to American values and our way of life.” I’m sure Mexico and Brazil, and Saudi Arabia for that matter, don’t like it either. I don’t think we need to tap into the us vs. them language of T. Boone to create excitement for the clean revolution. It is exciting enough without that.

We need to break America’s addiction to foreign oil. We need a new energy system that is clean, green and American-made. And we need a president who can marshal our nation’s resources, get the job done and deliver the change we need.

Foreign oil! This is the wrong frame. What we need is to break America’s addiction to all oil, and in fact, all fossil fuels. We don’t talk about the need to increase domestic opiate production in order to break our addiction on Afghani heroin. This should be no different.

That leader is Barack Obama. Barack Obama knows there’s no single platform for energy independence. It’s not a question of either wind or clean coal, solar or hydrogen, oil or geothermal. We need them all to create a strong American energy system, a system built on American innovation.

There is no such thing as clean coal. Admittedly, Obama isn’t much better on this.

After eight years of a White House waiting hand and foot on big oil, John McCain offers more of the same. At a time of skyrocketing fuel prices, when American families are struggling to keep their gas tanks full, John McCain voted 25 times against renewable and alternative energy. Against clean biofuels. Against solar power. Against wind energy.

This paragraph is spot on. The bit about McCain voting 25 times against renewable energy should be repeated ad nauseum until the election.

This not only hurts America’s energy independence, it could cost American families more than a hundred thousand jobs. At a time when America should be working harder than ever to develop new, clean sources, John McCain wants more of the same and has taken more than a million dollars in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. Now he wants to give the oil companies another 4 billion dollars in tax breaks. Four billion in tax breaks for big oil?

Yes! Talk about the oil money lining McCain’s pockets. Talk about the quid pro quo.

That’s a lot of change, but it’s not the change we need.

Seems like a confusing message, since he just mentioned how McCain wants more of the same.

In Montana, we’re investing in wind farms and we’re drilling in the Bakken formation, one of the most promising oil fields in America. We’re pursuing coal gasification with carbon sequestration and we’re promoting greater energy efficiency in homes and offices.

Wind farms and increasing building efficiency = good. Everything else here = bad.

Even leaders in the oil industry know that Senator McCain has it wrong. We simply can’t drill our way to energy independence, even if you drilled in all of John McCain’s backyards, including the ones he can’t even remember.

Oh snap! I didn’t know he had it in him.

That single-answer proposition is a dry well, and here’s why. America consumes 25 percent of the world’s oil, but has less than 3 percent of the reserves. You don’t need a $2 calculator to figure that one out. There just isn’t enough oil in America, on land or offshore, to meet America’s full energy needs.

Again, we need to stop using fossil fuels, not just “foreign oil.”

Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you don’t use. Barack Obama’s energy strategy taps all sources and all possibilities. It will give you a tax credit if you buy a fuel-efficient car or truck, increase fuel-efficiency standards and put a million plug-in hybrids on the road.

Not all sources are worth tapping, but otherwise a good paragraph.

Invest $150 billion over the next 10 years in clean, renewable energy technology. This will create up to 5 million new, green jobs and fuel long-term growth and prosperity. Senator Obama’s plan will also invest in a modern transmission grid to deliver this new, clean electricity from wind turbines and solar panels to homes, offices and the batteries in America’s new plug-in hybrid cars.

All great stuff, this is the part of Obama’s plan I really like.

Overall it was a pretty compelling speech and it included some great talking points. Given the shortcomings though, if this really was the highlight of the night, we’ve got some serious work to do.