Ranting and Venting

You'll see links to news articles, snippets from interviews and other web paraphenalia. This will also be a dumping ground for various stuff that I might need to get off my chest. Hence the Ranting and Venting title.


Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Kicking the Oil Addiction: Bush Lied, Again

A nice little blog entry concerning Bush lying in the State of the Union. Remember his little "Addicted to Oil" line? Remember his cutting foreign dependence line? Remember his Alternative energies line?

Remember me posting about it before?

Molly Ivans of Truthdig writes:
Kicking the Oil Addiction: Bush Lied, Again:
I like to think that Republicans are having fun. They'’re such cards. What a wheeze, what a jape. Talking about energy independence in the State of the Union address! President Bush said "America is addicted to oil"” and we will "break this addiction."” Oh what a good trick to see if anyone thought he actually meant it!

I'’m not going to embarrass the perennial suckers who fell for it by identifying them, but I assure you they include some well-known names in journalism. Boy, I bet they feel like fools, having written those optimistic columns pointing to how Bush had made a fine proposal "—cut oil imports from the Middle East by 75% by 2025" —and people should take it seriously and stop dissing him.

Of course, the next day the administration trotted out Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and Alan Hubbard, director of the president'’s National Economic Council, to assure us the president didn'’t mean it. Bodman explained, "That was purely an example."” A "for instance." Like, we could set a goal like that. Actually, we could do that without breaking a sweat: set fuel efficiency standards at 40 miles per gallon in 10 years (hybrids already get higher mileage now), and you save 2.5 million barrels a day, just what we import now from the Mideast.

According to Knight Ridder, "“Asked why the president used the words "‘the Middle East"’ when he didn'’t really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands."’ The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him into trouble."
So... Why did he lie to us again?

Aw. Let'’s see, Bush lied so "“every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands."” It'’s our fault. We'’re so dumb, if he doesn't lie, we don'’t get it. Of course, those sophisticates who pay attention to stuff like the budget, where they decide how to spend the money, were already aware that the $150 million (a truly pitiful amount by Washington standards) Bush promised would go to making biofuels more competitive is $50 million less than what was in last year'’s budget for that purpose.

But, you are not to assume that Bush has given up on the Dick Cheney plan to drill our way to energy independence just because he didn't mention it in his speech. Last month, the Department of the Interior released a plan that will open 590,000 acres in Alaska'’s Western Arctic Reserve for drilling. The land has been protected for decades.

The head of the Natural Resources Defense Council'’s Alaska Project, Chuck Clusen, said: "“Scientists, sportsmen and conservation groups all agree we should protect the last 13% of the most sensitive habitat in the Western Arctic'’s Northeast area. Eighty-seven percent was already open. The Bureau of Land Management decided to hand all of it over to the oil companies.... We can drill every last acre of wilderness, and it won'’t make us any more secure. We only have 3% of the world'’s oil, and the Middle East has 66%. Do the math. We can'’t drill our way to energy independence."

What a good joke.

The entire article can be found here:
Kicking the Oil Addiction: Bush Lied, Again

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