Dud of Personality
Barron YoungSmith pulls the file on Mr. Congeniality:
The lede of a June 28, 2000 piece in the New York Times:
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.
And today:
Saudi Arabia’s leaders made clear Friday they see no reason to increase oil production until customers demand it, apparently rebuffing President Bush amid soaring U.S. gasoline prices.
It was Bush’s second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah, … But Saudi officials stuck to their position that they will only pump more oil into the system when asked to by buyers, something they say is not happening now, the president’s national security adviser told reporters.
Either the original theory was wrong, or George isn’t as charming as he thinks he is…
Charm is a great way for the otherwise powerless to gain power, but when the powerful lose power, charm is often useless at getting it back. (Bill Clinton once disproved this rule, but then he lost his charm.) Elsewhere I just finished observing that
the only reason why Bush’s request was begging was that Bush is pathetic and nobody needs to listen to him anymore, even our bosom Saudi buddies. Any President with an ounce of clout and gravitas could have discovered a way, by hook or by crook, to get even a symbolic increase in oil production with at least his public honor intact. Not George.
Other than the cost, why is supposedly the strongest nation on not able to supply its own oil. Why can’t the oil companies who are making billions, use some of the revenue to drill here, or do we not have any here. Unbelievable.
— esther · May 17, 06:28 PM · #
Why are we not working on building our own refinerys and/or expanding our existing refinerys here in the US. I am sick of the democrats and republicans not working together to solve our countries issues. Why are these elected officials in office if they are not there to help us. We help all other countries in their trouble times, but not our own taxpayers.
— sadie · May 17, 07:13 PM · #
Eight years ago, we didn’t know that AQ was predominantly Saudi; that
their likely best petroleum engineers are likely recruits to AQ; because
of the madrassa-hawala charity network. Now the Taliban was at one time,
a client of at least certain parts of their security services; to be charitable and thousands of Saudi citizens have gone to Iraq and blown themselves up; their next door neighbor in part to block their likely
competition for fresh oil; and to attack the heretical Shia. It would take another few years to see how they financed at least Hamas’s part of the
‘gelignite intifada’. Another equally large number of Saudi citizens have been or continue to be in detention facilities like Gitmo & Bagram. Ironically, Obama thinks by hiring advisers that echo the Saudi viewpoint
on Palestinians, Iraq, and other issues;(Brezinski on the Israeli Lobby;
Powers on forcing concesssions in general, and abandoning Iraq; Malley on Hamas, he will win some points from them. Another more practical point, much of the new found oil wealth hasn’t gone for upkeep of their oil industry. This is a much larger scale problem, than that of the Chavez govt. So it’s dubious that they could realistically scale up more production.
Now, it’s ridiculous that nearly three years after Katrina gave us our first big oil sticker shock; due to it’s effects on gulf oil refining and extraction facilities; that we have not moved to begin to develop our own resources. In fact, the new energy law, expressly prohibits the development
and/or exploitation of shale. But cut out the snark and stick to some facts.
— narciso · May 18, 03:13 AM · #