Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Prius Envy

Peking Duck was kind enough to reprint Maureen Dowd’s latest New York Times Editorial, A Prius in Every Pot.  Dowd’s pulls out her flamethrower and torches the president on his wishy-washy stance on cleaner energy sources and protecting the environment, saying “You could run a fleet of S.U.V.'s on the gas that W. was spewing about fuel.”  But then she really goes to work, questioning his motives:

Price manipulation could explain the marginal — why gas went from, say, $2.70 to $2.90 — but not why gas went from $1.40 to $2.70. That's more about fundamental forces: Chinese and Indian demand, markets spooked by Iran's threats, Nigeria's unrest, Venezuela's talk of nationalizing its oil industry, and the Pentagon's bungling of the restoration of Iraq's infrastructure.

Gasoline prices may be hurting average folks, but the oilers who helped put the Boy King and the Duke of Halliburton in office with lavish donations are enjoying record profits and breathtaking bonuses.

The Oilmen in the Oval, incompetent in so many ways, have brilliantly achieved one of their main objectives: boosting the fortunes of the oil industry and the people who run it.


Fortunately for us (perhaps not so fortunately for George W. Bush), Maureen Dowd stays on the offensive, really digging into Bush’s and Dick Cheney’s ties with the oil companies, and concludes with this heartwarming paragraph:

The only oil baron who isn't cashing in these days is Saddam. We pulled up to the pump in Baghdad and plunked down $10 billion a month, and we're still not getting any gas out of it. Instead of easing our oil dependence and paying for Iraq's reconstruction, the bungled invasion and subsequent nuclear sparring with Iran have left even Republicans looking for Priuses.


It’s a great column, and well worth a read, despite coming from the New York Times. Take a look at it, I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.

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Posted by Scottage at 4:33 PM / | |