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Thursday, February 02, 2006
Don't believe the hype
Posted by neros_fiddle at 9:04 AM
I haven't even had time to dissect the domestic policy half of the SOTU, and part of it (one of my favorites) has already been disowned by the White House. One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally. (The whole article is worth a read, and makes some points similar to those Dob made in comments last night. I like the part where the president of Americans for Energy Independence says that alternative fuel sources are great, but conservation is a good idea, too.) Why did they back off this pledge so quickly? There's a big clue in today's New York Times. Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to ask Mr. Bush's office "what he exactly meant by that." Oops. |
