After catching a TV commercial from the John McCain campaign which blamed Barack Obama for high gasoline prices, I wondered how that could be so. After all, Obama has been portrayed as a lightweight who never accomplished much, and now he’s the reason we’re paying $4 a gallon?
So I called my favorite inside source, Ananias Ziegler, the media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
Right off, he asked me, “Can you prove that Sen. Obama was not part of Vice President Dick Cheney’s secret National Energy Task Force that met in 2001?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “But wasn’t he just a state senator in Illinois then?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Ziegler said. “Unless you can demonstrate that he was not involved in the Bush administration’s formulation of the wonderful national energy policy we enjoy now, then it’s fair to hold him responsible for high gas prices. Besides, he’s a Democrat, and everyone knows they’ve blocked domestic oil production.”
I cited numbers from the federal Energy Information Administration. “Domestic crude-oil production peaked in 1970 at 3.52 billion barrels. In 2000, it was down to 2.13 billion. And last year it dropped to 1.86 billion.”
“And your point is?” he interrupted.
“If it was that important to increase domestic production, why didn’t it increase when there was a Republican president with a Republican House and Senate, when those evil Democrats couldn’t have blocked increased drilling?”
“Well, times change,” Ziegler said. “Back then, even a Republican governor like Florida’s Jeb Bush opposed drilling near his coastline.”
“Sort of like Gov. Arnold Schwarz- enegger in California now?” I asked.
“I wish you hadn’t brought him up,” Ziegler snapped. “Why do they worry, anyway? Don’t you know that not a single drop was spilled from an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico during hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005?” “That’s not quite true,” I pointed out. “The Minerals Management Service of the Department of Interior said there were 125 spills involving a total of 16,302 barrels.”
Ziegler pondered that and moved on. “Wait until you see our next video production. It’ll show a vast array of idle drilling rigs and unemployed roughnecks.”
“But don’t the oil developers have thousands of acres already leased that they haven’t drilled?” I asked.
“Of course they do,” Ziegler said. “And if they can bid for more, doesn’t that make for increased federal income and a lower budget deficit, even if it doesn’t produce any more oil?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. “And the new oil-shale leasing proposal from the Interior Department could work that way, too?” I asked, optimistically. “Studies, surveys, tests, lease sales and swaps, everything but production?”
“More than likely,” Ziegler agreed, “since nobody has found a profitable way to use the stuff. But I like the other possibility: a big chunk of your insignificant flyover state chewed into a moonscape. Every drop of water diverted from agriculture to industry. Huge new coal-fired generating plants to meet the electric demands of this industry and its workforce.”
I interrupted. “All so people can go back to commuting 80 miles a day in 12-mpg SUVs?”
“Of course,” Ziegler said, “just as soon as Obama and your evil, air-loving, water-protecting, wildlife-coddling elected officials get out of our way. After all, Vice President Cheney said it all: ‘The American way of life is not negotiable.’ ”
And with that, Ziegler had to take another call.
Ed Quillen (ed@cozine.com) is a frequent contributor to The Post.
