That Oil Thing

Michael T. Klare, "The oil price villain? Bush".

... the Bush administration's greatest contribution to rising oil prices is its steady stream of threats to attack Iran, if it does not back down on the nuclear issue. The Iranians have made it plain that they would retaliate by attempting to block the flow of Gulf oil and otherwise cause turmoil in the energy market. Most analysts assume, therefore, that an encounter will produce a global oil shortage and prices well over $200 per barrel. It is not surprising, then, that every threat by Bush/Cheney (or their counterparts in Israel) has triggered a sharp rise in prices. This is where speculators enter the picture. Believing that a U.S.-Iranian clash is at least 50 per cent likely, some investors are buying futures in oil at $140, $150 or more per barrel, thinking they'll make a killing if there's an attack and prices zoom past $200.

It follows, then, that while the hike in prices is due largely to ever-increasing demand chasing insufficiently expanding supply, the Bush administration's energy policies have greatly intensified the problem. By seeking to preserve an oil-based energy system at any cost, and by adding to the "fear factor" in international speculation through its bungled invasion of Iraq and bellicose statements on Iran, it has made a bad problem much worse ....

.... And if this administration truly wanted to spare Americans further pain at the pump, there is one thing it could do that would have an immediate effect: declare that military force is not an acceptable option in the struggle with Iran. Such a declaration would take the wind out of the sails of speculators and set the course for a drop in prices.

Pudding and Pie

David Horsey, "Bush lays down for Big Oil"

Sometimes political cartoons just fall from the sky. Someone in the world of government will do something so absurdly self-destructive or propose an idea that is so transparently a pander to a powerful entity that all the cartoonist need do is transcribe reality.

A timeless example comes from Gary Hart's aborted run for the presidency in 1988. Who would have thought one of the smartest guys in politics would have been dumb enough to take a mid-campaign break with a pretty, young blonde babe who was not his wife... and go cruising with her on a boat named Monkey Business... and have his picture taken with the woman on his lap... and then challenge the press to follow him around? No cartoon could top that kind of looniness.

While the unruly sexual proclivities of politicians often provide easy target practice for cartoonists (see Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer), often it's just the jaw-dropping, blatant prostitution to special interests that turns cartoonists into mere illustrators of the news. The latest case in point is President Bush's plan to give the oil companies a huge tax cut at a time when they are raking in the biggest profits in history. Can he possibly believe that the oil industry is so strapped for cash that a deficit-building tax break is required? Does he expect us to believe it?