Transparent Bush

An AP article today, Bush says Democrats keep blocking his energy plans, implies just how transparent his selfish motives are in the current oil crisis.

Today, the reason we have high gas prices is because Democrats are blocking Bush's wish to release restrictions on coastal drilling and on any federal lands, including the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. His words of wisdom:

"This is a difficult time for many American families," Bush said. "Rising gasoline prices and economic uncertainty can affect everything from what food parents put on the table to where they can go on vacation."

Not only is he clueless on what Americans are truly concerned about, but he is stomping his foot like a spoiled brat when he's told that oil companies already hold leases on 68 million acres of federal lands outside the ban areas that they have never bothered to develop. He wants to ease current restrictions on refining and open up the harvesting of oil shale in Colorado. And, of course, Alaska is on the list.

"I ask them to reconsider their positions," he said. "If congressional leaders leave for the Fourth of July recess without taking action, they will need to explain why $4-a-gallon gasoline is not enough incentive for them to act."

Herein lies the transparency. Bush and his cohort Cheney are oil men. Both know that the industry is as short-sighted as it gets, which is the reason the US - and hence the rest of the world - is in this mess today. Always looking for astronomical profit margins for today, the industry put all its eggs in one basket by depending solely on imported crude. It's much less expensive than buying the equipment, drilling, and paying US wages. Not only that, it takes years to put into motion new drilling, according to the industry itself.

The shame lies in that, once again, it's Big Business that runs the politics, and the Middle East has a death grip on America's balls. Driven only by profit margin, all decisions revolve around the good of the oil industry, not the good of the oil industry's consumers - the American public.

Since Bush is about to leave office, and even though he'll retain his presidential salary until the day he dies, he needs to break down the barriers that stand in the way of his short-sidedness and next year's business for him and his cohorts.

It's the same short-sighted way he's run this country for the last 8 years. Now he's just a little too obvious that he's paving his own road at the expense of the rest of us.