Eureka! Finally a Triumph For The Bush Administration: Oil Hits $100/bbl

One can well imagine them popping champagne corks at the Department of Energy, along 'K' Street in Washington, in the inner sanctums of oil patch corner offices. They did it! Through gross inaction, through sop remedies, through disingenuous lip service, they were able to steer the price of oil from the low twenties at the start of the Bush years to $100 a barrel today. The spectacle of George W. and Dick Cheney giving each other high fives in the Oval Office would not be hard to imagine. And of course the prospect of an ebullient Prince Bandar calling in his congratulations from Riyadh.

Seven years have passed without any significant progress in the abatement of our fossil fuel consumption (Please see "In 2008: A Few Questions On Energy For the Candidate", 12/31,07). As I've said before, the administration's oil industry buddies are ecstatic at the windfall the entire oil sector has reaped from the more than quadrupling of oil prices, to levels undreamed of before the advent of this Presidency. This, while many of the nation's citizens are having their household budgets ripped to shreds in order to meet their home heating bills this winter. Rarely, if ever in the history of the Republic, has there been such a divergence between the nation's wellbeing, and those with the vested interests that form this administration.