Thursday, February 2, 2006

The nation Bush doesn't see

An EssEffChron editorial:

PRESIDENT BUSH'S bemoaning of America's addiction to oil last night was just one measure of his disconnect with the effects of his administration's policies.

Yes, this nation does need to push more aggressively conservation and alternative-energy technologies to break its dependence on oil that is "often imported from unstable parts of the world," as Bush observed in his State of the Union address. Yet this is the same president who began his administration by inviting energy industry executives to meet behind closed doors with Vice President Dick Cheney. It's fair to say the industry recommendations -- many of which were incorporated into the Bush plan -- were not aimed at easing this nation's addiction to oil.

The Bush administration's energy-policy emphasis to date has been on feeding the nation's oil addiction by pushing for greatly expanded drilling on public lands, from the Rocky Mountains to Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

His defense of warrantless eavesdropping was flat-out disingenuous. His suggestion that the Sept. 11 attacks might have been averted if authorities had been able to wiretap two al Qaeda plotters who were making overseas calls was a perfect example of activity for which a warrant would be approved -- assuming U.S. authorities were bothering to keep track of terrorists they knew had entered this country. A Presidential Daily Briefing that declared that bin Laden was "determined to strike" in the United States, perhaps with hijackers -- such as the one sent to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001 -- was plenty of evidence for warrants on known al Qaeda operatives.

There's stuff in between those quotes as well.

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