The Blame Game

What America needs is a president who doesn’t lie, doesn’t push policies or say things simply because they poll well, and doesn’t blame others for the mess we’re in. What America needs, in other words, is a president who is anyone but a Clinton.

When you blame others, all you are doing is wasting time. When you’re a politician and you blame others, well, then you’re a typical politician, but not a very good leader.

If you’re planning to lead, one thing you need to do is to work with people who disagree with you. This may not be obvious to many people today. It’s the way things work, when they work at all, and they haven’t in so long that it may feel like a new concept to some of us.

This government can work again. The change that’s needed is leadership that can bring people together and end the nasty partisan bickering that has dragged this nation down over the past 16 years. We won’t get that if we end up with leadership that is consumed with blaming others. Because that kind of leadership believes it can get things done all by itself. Do we need more of that?

Gail Collins explains this better than me:

All this actually tells us something about the Democratic candidates, which has nothing to do with fuel prices. Obama believes voters want a sensible, less-divisive political dialogue, that the whole process can become more honorable if the right candidate leads the way. Hillary really doesn’t buy that. She has principles, but she doesn’t believe in principled stands. She thinks that if she can get elected, she can do great things. And to get there, she’s prepared to do whatever. That certainly includes endorsing any number of meaningless-to-ridiculous ideas. (See: her bill to make it illegal to desecrate an American flag.)

Blame Bush? Hillary Clinton blames George W. Bush and the Republicans for everything. Lately, she’s been blaming Bush for the high price of oil. Hillary is fond of saying that when Bush took office, oil was $20 a barrel, and now look; the implication being that George W. Bush, through his mere presence in the White House (and at times it has been), is solely responsible for a barrel of oil costing six times as much as it once did.

That’s oversimplifying things a bit.

Hillary gets a little wild-eyed at her campaign events, as if surprised that there’s anyone there at all. (What’s this? A SURPRISE party?! I can’t BELIEVE you all are here for ME!) This can be frightening to watch. She especially likes to get all bug-eyed and roll them around when talking about the subject of “hope”. Being married to The Man From Hope (as in, “I hope Hillary doesn’t find out about me and the intern”) might have soured her on the idea. But her plans, as outlined on her website, are even wilder than the looks she casts about while speaking. They start with talk about American families needing “a President that will focus every day on ensuring that they can make ends meet.” With the kind of focus Hillary is promising on every single one of these issues, do you really think she is going to be ABLE to answer the phone at 3am?

Hillary has a plan to address soaring prices at the pump. The plan starts with the symptom (soaring prices at the pump) and misses the REAL problem (Peak Oil) so there is really no chance of success. But Hillary doesn’t care if the plan works or not; that is, for Hillary, the plan works if voters fall for it. Whether the plan addresses a real problem and can actually succeed isn’t important. It polls well, and that is really all that matters for Hillary.

The plan is described as aggressive. It looks like Hillary is planning to obliterate soaring prices at the pump, although how she can do this while obliterating Iran, which is the fourth largest oil producing nation in the world, is beyond me.

Blame Big Oil? Hillary will pay for the temporary “holiday” from the gasoline excise tax by imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies. Unfortunately, Hillary also has a plan to pay for alternative energy development by imposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies. The money can’t be used twice, even if she can get this approved in Washington. And right now, it doesn’t look like she can get it approved. (Hillary has called for all members of congress to declare whether they are with her or against her on this issue, borrowing language used by George W. Bush in the war on terrorism. Many of her fellow senators and congressmen are not with her.)

Hillary doesn’t really care whether she can get these windfall taxes approved, or whether she can spend the money twice; the point is to pander to voters.

And it turns out that, like George Bush, blaming Big Oil may not be the answer: for all its profits, Exxon-Mobil is not doing too well these days.

In particular, investors focused on a drop in production from Exxon’s operations, because of a nationalization of its assets in Venezuela, declines in the United States and Canada and lower volumes in Africa.

Exxon’s oil output dropped almost 10 percent to 2.47 million barrels a day compared with last year, as production declined in every region of the world except for Russia and the Caspian region. Production of natural gas rose by a little more than 1 percent to 10.2 billion cubic feet a day.

The combined oil and gas production fell by almost 6 percent, to 4.18 million barrels a day in the first quarter, the company reported in a statement.

Let’s say Hillary manages to suspend the gasoline excise tax of 18.4¢. A gallon of gas goes temporarily from $3.99 (around here) to $3.81. A couple of days later, the difference disappears, and consumers bear the burden as oil companies raise the price in order to pay for any potential windfall profits tax coming their way. Or simply to pocket the extra couple of dimes.

If the windfall profits tax isn’t passed, then the oil companies pocket the difference. If it is passed, the oil companies pass the hit on to the consumer.

Meanwhile, whether or not Hillary has already promised to use the money raised from windfall profits taxes for alternative energy development, 300,000 construction jobs are lost, and the federal road maintenance program comes to a screeching halt.

That extra $30 you pocketed from Hillary’s tax panderrelief holiday goes towards a half a tank of gas, and you break an axle on an unmaintained road. Good luck.

Blame Bigger Oil? “Hillary believes we should be taking more aggressive action to address OPEC’s control over global production levels and hold OPEC accountable for its decisions. President Bush’s efforts to pressure OPEC over the past seven years have been inconsistent and unsuccessful.”

That’s right, Hillary is promising more aggressive action against OPEC. In other words, Hillary thinks that the President of the United States has the power and authority to tell sovereign nations how much oil they can produce and sell to the United States. It hasn’t occured to her that those sovereign nations may not be able to increase production. Hillary apparently believes OPEC’s inflated reserve estimates. Hillary doesn’t seem to grasp what is happening with OPEC right now.

OPEC has lied about how much oil it has in reserve since at least the mid 1980s. And OPEC has no reason to tell the truth about how much oil it can produce. However, there is also no reason for OPEC to hold production at a level below its maximum capacity, especially since the price per barrel is so high right now. The only reason OPEC would have for not producing more oil is a physical inability to do so. OPEC won’t admit to that, so they talk of holding production at the current level.

Blame Less Oil! It’s too bad Hillary doesn’t get Peak Oil. If she did, I’m sure we would see a hundred and one different policy suggestions on her website, and who knows, one of them might be useful. As it is, Hillary doesn’t fear a disruption in our oil supply. She’s calling on President Bush to stop filling the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Hillary appears to be a believer in “just-in-time” supply systems: “the SPR should be more actively managed to enable releases from the SPR to counter market spikes and reduce volatility”. I think it’s great that the SPR is at 97% right now, and would hate to see Hillary get her way and have that number come down to, say, 30-45 days. We’re only talking about a 90-day supply here. In the event of a crisis, it might take quite a while before the situation returns to normal.

Hillary appears to be woefully uninformed about the seriousness of our current energy crisis. So are most of the mainstream media. I have been greatly amused by the shock and outrage expressed by Hardball’s Chris Matthews, Countdown’s Keith Olbermann, and The Huffington Post over Senator John McCain correctly pointing out that the war in Iraq has something to do with oil. And I thought by now, everyone knew we weren’t there because of weapons of mass destruction.