The pre-media release of the U.S. Presidents State of the Union Speech the other night focused on oil man George Bush announcing that 'America must overcome it's oil addiction', in particular oil from the Middle East.
It was a lie.
It made all the headlines pre and post STOU.Bush Acknowledges U.S. Reliance on Oil
It was a lie.
It made the blogs. It was a major focus of discussion.
It was a lie.
Like his father before him it was George W. Bush's 'read my lips' line of the night.
It was a lie.
Bush aides clarify statements about oil
Mideast Still a Player in Oil MarketsOn Wednesday, Hubbard and Bodman acknowledged that Persian Gulf oil may, in fact, not be replaced at all, even if overall oil imports were to drop because of the increased availability of alternative motor fuels.
Bodman said the president's reference to a 75 percent replacement of Persian Gulf oil was "purely an example" of the kinds of reductions in overall imports that might be possible if U.S. demand for oil were reduced.
"It was not meant to suggest anything related to the politics of the situation. ... It was merely meant to give an example," Bodman added.
Hubbard, when pressed further, abandoned the suggestion that Middle East oil would be "replaced" as the president said. Instead, he said the oil savings would be "equivalent" to three-fourths of the projected imports from the Persian Gulf.
Bush running out of energy
Bush's focus on reducing the percentage of oil imported from the Middle East, which currently accounts for only about 17% of all US oil imports, even drew scorn from neo-conservative allies of the president. They have argued that the impact on global prices created by Washington's demand for oil - regardless of its origin - is what empowers and enriches Middle Eastern exporters, such as Saudi Arabia, that in their view contribute directly or indirectly to radical Islamist movements that threaten the US and Israel.
"It doesn't matter if we don't buy oil from the Middle East," Gal Luft, a co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, told the New York Times. If the US doesn't buy oil from the region, "someone else will, supporting the same regimes".
One commentator, the Washington Post's economics columnist, Steven Pearlstein, took a particularly cynical view of Bush's proposals. "Does anyone really believe that a president and vice president who became wealthy from their association with the oil and gas industry, who never failed to tout the industry line and who presided over the biggest transfer of wealth from consumers to industry in the history of mankind - that these same leaders will move us beyond a 'petroleum-based economy' to one based on 'wood chips, stalks or switch grass'?" he wrote, referring to Bush's description of the sources of cellulosic ethanol.
On the eve of Bush's address, the world's largest energy company, ExxonMobil, announced that it had set a record last year for profits among US companies - $36 billion - apparently as a result of skyrocketing oil and gas prices, as well as generous tax breaks and other subsidies promoted by Bush and the Republican-led Congress.
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State of the Union
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