Rant #6

[ed goldberg]

Hey, 2 days in a row.
Normally, I don't listen to the dunce-in-chief at a press conference, but I was listening to NPR and was too lazy to turn it off.
Bush has improved as a speaker to the extent that he can regurgitate what they put in front of him without sounding like the worst kid in Remedial Reading. But, in any extemporaneous effort, his responses continue to be proof of a disordered mind.
All he knows he's had to memorize. He continues to stay "on message" even when the canned pap drilled into him is inappropriate to the question. When asked about suspending the gas tax, he coughed up the Pavlovian response about not getting into the presidential campaign, then starts back on drilling in ANWAR and building new oil refineries and nook-you-lar facilities.
Nuclear plants? Okay, as long as all of the waste is stored on Bush's dude ranch in Texas.
W, who no longer has to run for anything and is a lame duck (was that label ever more fitting?), has started getting snide with reporters. Never more than a fraud as a hail-fellow-well-met, he is now actively hostile to certain questions.
I could never understand why people believed Bush would be "a good guy to have a beer with." He would stick you with the bar tab and then throw up in your car on the way home. It's his nature.
This depraved and criminal administration, i.e., our long national nightmare, is almost over.

[ed goldberg]

Hi,
Sorry this response has taken so long. Truthfully, I don't recall what Clinton's energy policy was. During his presidency, we were relatively prosperous and fuel cost much less of our disposable income. And, competition for oil was a fraction of what it is today. Our last fat, stupid and happy decade.
I was never that big a fan of the Clinton administration, despite the healthy economy and the budget surpluses.
I always considered him a bit too "liberal Republican," since he stole much of their program and made it his own. I would have much preferred a real Democrat.
Every time someone comes up with a sensible energy policy, the right wing yells "foul," and screams about a "planned economy," one of the pinatas they like to beat about socialism.
Unless we get smart fast about a world of declining resources, not excluding potable water, we are condemned to an unhappy future.
Hope I didn't spoil your day.
(Jan. 20, 2009)

[Naomi Johnson]

None of the politicians have done anything about it, as far as I can tell. Aside from the administration's current thought that -- as predicted -- we should allow drilling on the North Slope and offshore.

[Cynde L. Hammond]

I'm not clear on this: was anything done about this during the comparable eight-year Clinton administration? I'm sure we had this same problem back then and I don't hear about whether anything was or wasn't accomplished. Could someone fill me in, please? Thanks.

[Naomi Johnson]

I still want to see a leader who challenges the nation to get the job done when it comes to energy. Kennedy challenged the country to put men on the moon within a decade, and put the money behind NASA to make it happen. And it happened. Why can't we do the same with energy. Make it a national goal, reduce our dependence on oil by 80-90% within a decade. It can be done, I have no doubt. Of course, a lot of already affluent people (like Cheney & his wife & friends) are still getting rich off oil, so there'll be some big money behind efforts to stop it. And of course, the average American will take the path of least resistance and least imagination, and demand that the entire North Slope be opened so he can have lower prices at the pump.

And the hits just keep on coming...