What a difference a bay makes.

Jim Gordon proposes a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, and all hell breaks loose. You'd think you're in the West Bank, given the number of times ``sacred ground" is thrown around. Much of the state's political establishment, led by our governor and senior senator, whose family happens to own property overlooking the sound, is bent on strangling the plan in its crib.

Then Jay Cashman proposes a wind farm on the other side of the Elizabeth Islands in Buzzards Bay, and everyone is all ears. You've got to be tone deaf to miss the double standard.

These wind farms are the darnedest things. It's like lifting linoleum in an old house -- they reveal the horror of it all. Nothing in this regard is more delicious than the unmasking of fair-weather environmentalists.

Governor Mitt Romney, who was poised to kill the Gordon plan, given the chance, sounds plumb bullish on the Cashman gambit. Speaking for Romney, who was rustling up votes in Baghdad last week, spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom called the Cashman wind farm ``an intriguing idea and we're anxious to learn more about it."

US Representative Barney Frank, another Nantucket Sound wind farm opponent, says of the Cashman plan, ``I'm in favor of it in principle and hopeful that it can be worked out." (He says he opposes Gordon's project out of deference to his colleagues, whose help he'll need to stop an LNG terminal from being built in Fall River. If the substance of his position is deplorable, his candor is bracing.)

Ted Kennedy, who rails against the Gordon project, has taken a noticably different tone regarding Cashman. We have this in a recent statement: ``I hope this proposal will start a thoughtful discussion in Massachusetts about which state waters are appropriate for alternative energy development."

Funny, I don't remember such measured words when Gordon announced his plans in Kennedy's back yard. Face it, folks, Buzzards Bay just doesn't have the political juice that Nantucket Sound does. This reality is not lost on New Bedford.

``There's no doubt about it," says Mayor Scott Lang of the double standard. ``I don't want New Bedford to be thought of as a dumping ground for noxious projects no on else wants. When Hyannis and Marblehead have wind farms, call me."

For the record, Cashman wants to build a large farm of wind turbines in state waters off of Dartmouth and Fairhaven and Naushon Island, up to 120 of them, rising as high as 450 feet, some as close as 2 miles off shore. Buzzards Bay is much smaller than Nantucket Sound, with major shipping that includes 2 billion gallons of petroleum products coming through the Cape Cod Canal each year, and half the population of roseate terns in the Northeast.

Kennedy has boxed himself into a corner. If he supports wind turbines in Buzzards Bay but not in his beloved Nantucket Sound, he only cements his credentials as a Not In My Back Yard warrior. If he opposes both, he earns an indelible anti-wind-farm tattoo.

Kennedy did not bathe himself in glory with his attempt to sneak language into a Coast Guard authorization bill giving Romney the right to veto the Gordon project. The bill was in limbo while he was hammered from the right by the Bush administration and the left by environmentalists and good-government types. Last week, he gave the Coast Guard commandant final approval, a move sure to create new wrinkles.

This is a lousy time to oppose wind power. The argument for it only grows with public concern over global warming and nosebleed gas prices. That's why Cashman's wind farm deserves a rigorous review, rather than an early post-mortem.

We can only hope that consideration of this plan will carry less of the bald hypocrisy that has characterized the melee over Gordon's project.

That said, Cashman's challenge is huge. The permitting process in Buzzards Bay will be much harder than in Nantucket Sound.

New Bedford comes in for scrutiny, too. Many Buzzards Bay environmentalists have championed the wind farm effort in the adjacent sound from a safe distance. Their body of water, after all, wouldn't be touched. The Cashman project would change that, and they must now look in the mirror for mutant strains of the Nantucket Sound NIMBY virus.

Lang appears to be infected. ``I'm not against wind power per se," he says, ``But a gigantic industrial wind farm off of New Bedford from environmental and economic perspectives doesn't make sense. This is one of the premier recreational areas in the Northeast."

The Observer must be experiencing yet another acid flashback, because those words sound awfully like Nantucket Sound No-speak.

John Bullard, board president of the environmental group The Coalition for Buzzards Bay, calls his city's bluff: ``If environmentalists here say we think wind power is great but don't even think about it in Buzzards Bay, then we're just as bad as the alliance against the wind farm in Nantucket Sound."

Sam Allis can be reached at allis@globe.com.