Posted on 04/24/2006 8:03:31 AM PDT by SmithL
President Bush's sagging approval ratings over the Iraq war and a host of other problems have led him to begin a White House staff shake-up. New polling data suggest the rising cost of gas could cause more political damage.
Three-quarters of Americans said they disapprove of Bush's handling of the gas price surge, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Fuel and oil prices jumped to third place - behind Iraq and immigration - in a Gallup Poll survey asking Americans to rate the country's most pressing problems.
One problem for Bush is that oil traders' fears of geopolitical instability have been fueled by his major foreign policy initiatives - first in Iraq, where the war is into its fourth year, and now in Iran, which is defying warnings from Bush and other world leaders over its nuclear ambitions.
Fifteen Democratic senators, including Dianne Feinstein of California, wrote Bush on Tuesday, asking him to convene an emergency energy summit and to back legislation dealing with price gouging.
"In the absence of leadership or cooperation from your administration, we will soon be moving ahead with our own set of real solutions, which will spur the kind of innovation and investment America needs to secure its energy future for the 21st century," the senators wrote.
Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have shown little interest in Bush's appeal, in his State of the Union speech this year, to reduce Americans' dependence on foreign oil by investing in alternative fuel technologies. Such initiatives could bring down gasoline prices in the long term, but...
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Quote: "Actually, there is truth in what you say.
Declare an energy emergency. Issue three executive orders.
Order no. 1 authorizes drilling on both Coasts, the gulf, Anwar and all federal lands.
Order no. 2 authorizes nuclear reactors built to produce 100% of electricity in the US.
Order no. 3 authorizes refineries to be built with only one environmental challenge and coal and tar sands to be mined to produce oil.
Then spotlight Democrats opposition to all energy exploration in the US which has brought us to a crisis of epic proportions."
Exactly, MAKE THEM VOTE. Make the dems stand up against the solutions. The dems allegiance to the envrio whackos has caused 90% of the problem. Make them vote and hang that allegiance around their necks like an albatross.
The problem? For some reason Mr. Bush seems incapable of doing anything. He just waits around for his opponents to pin everything on him.
The current topic is merely an extension of this approach. If they really feel that this is the proper way of conducting business maybe they should invite Ted Kennedy over for some popcorn and a movie to discuss the matter.
I like your plan. That would be some fun politics to watch. Some ACTUAL reality TV.
Oh, wait. The Dim's don't control Congress. Well, it's still their fault!
Yeah, I do.
The US is a lot smarter than the old media thinks it is.
All we need is one off-the-cuff statment by Karl Rove --- "Yeah, it's the GOP's fault the Dim's won't let us drill in ANWR."
Keep it simple.
It's so nice to see the Sacramento Bee genuinely concerned about the GOP.
This must be compassionate liberalism. </sarcasm
New Tagline alert! Thanks.
What the heck - it is an opportunity to vent.
Yes, the Dems love to prey on the ignorance of the voter. Demonize the oil companies who get a much smaller piece of the pie than the speculators and the Government.
Good piece here which shows who gets the largest pieces of pie.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html
Friday night I was taking a NYC cab home, my driver was a Pakistani and he was listening to the BBC which started discussing recent gas/oil prices.
He blurted out quite seriosuly that America "should just invade Saudi Arabia and take their gas". "They don't have any army and the young people all want to be American".
Nothing like prices at the pump to spur public opinion.
By the end of the summer, drivers will be screaming to drill ANWR and invade Iran already.
Yeah, I'll bet the price "crashes" all the way to $2.60 a gallon before they start their "here come the hurricanes" propaganda and drive it right back up.
If we invade Iran pre-emptively, it will lower oil prices about as much as invading Iraq did : they will double.
While the Dems will scream that high gas prices are Bush's fault, what's their plan? I seem to remember that Al Gore wanted a $1/gallon federal tax on gasoline so that people will use less.
"Yeah, it's the GOP's fault the Dim's won't let us drill in ANWR."
Or make prices skyrocket faster as people try to cash in before threatened actions take effect.
It is interesting that you should mention the Canadian Oil Sands. The Petroleum industry has just discovered, the largest deposit of oil Sand in the world in Utah, Wyoming,
Nebraska. All of this is one big deposit and they are working on developing it right now.
I'm going to reply without reading the article, because I don't read the Sacramento Bee. But it does not surprise me that the Bee hopes the high price of energy will hurt Republicans. Americans are so fat and stupid anymore, that our forebears would be ashamed of what we have become after all their hard work and sacrifice. It doesn't matter that the oil off the coast of California, and under the barren tundra of the far north, is deemed unusable because of an unblemished horizon on the ocean or a few caribou and some plants more like weeds than garden flowers. It doesn't matter that for some reason nuclear power is just too dangerous to be used for energy. What we are suffering from is the long-term consequence of letting a small hanful of environmentalists dictate what we can and cannot do. That is it in a nutshell. If we don't get up the nerve to tell them to quit whining and get a job we are doomed as a counry. I think it is getting close to a time where we need to start moving to the place which will be part of the country we want to live in after the United States disintegrates.
Appromimately one years supply for the US but it will take fifty years to produce it and by then it will be much less than a one year supply.
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