Pretend Deepwater Horizon never happened?

Support for drilling ban fading fast in Florida, said the Herald headline Monday.

Since BP had stopped the flow of oil from its runaway well,, voters opposition had cooled, said a new poll.

Oh, yeah?

Well, the pollsters must not have polled folks along Anna Maria Island.

When the runaway oil well in the northwest Gulf Of Mexico was on the verge of being sealed recently, I asked several small business types -- is there any other kind on the beach? -- if they would be OK with the idea of oil drilling platforms just over the horizon from their properties.

N-o!

So what if our Gulf coast was relatively untainted by the poisons unleashed by BP's billion-dollar bungling.

I guess that means we just forget about it, pretend Deepwater Horizon never happened.

I don't think so.

It is said people have short memories, but we can't possibly shrug off what happened a few hundred miles off our shore these past months.

We just can't.

Drilling off our coast is not going to lessen Uncle Sam's dependence on foreign oil.

Drilling off our coast is not going to make the price at the pump cheaper.

Drilling off our coast will make us vulnerable to the kind of catastrophe that befell the Panhandle.

According to the poll, voters in that region went from 52 percent for a ban then compared to 36 percent for a ban now.

Short memories, all right.