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September 8, 2008 3:47:23 AM CDT

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Bush is Botching $4.11, Just Like He Did 9/11

Posted Jul 20, 08 1:05 PM CDT in Opinion,  Politics 

(Newser) – If a "crisis is a terrible thing to waste," then George Bush's reactions to 9/11 and the $4.11 average gas cost make him a doubly terrible leader, writes Tom Friedman in the New York Times. Instead of using rising gas costs to spur the nation to energy independence, "Our Decider decided to lift the executive orders banning (offshore) drilling—even though he knew this was a meaningless gesture," because of a Congressional moratorium.

Though he himself once kicked an alcohol addiction, Bush isn't leading the country in a direction that will cure what he has termed America's oil addiction. As Friedman writes, "When a person is addicted to crack cocaine, his problem is not that the price of crack is going up." America's problem is that it doesn't want to break its dangerous habit.

Source New York Times

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President Bush makes a statement on drilling for oil on the outer continental shelf, Monday, July 14,2008, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
In this March 28, 2006 file photo, the Discoverer Deep Seas drill ship sits on station off the coast of Louisiana as Chevron drills for oil in the Gulf of Mexico.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
A man works through a dust storm on a new oil well being drilled in the Sakhir desert, Bahrain. Our inability to wean ourselves off foreign oil has hurt America deeply, writes Thomas L Friedman.   (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)
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George W. Bush  • oil drilling  • addiction  • offshore oil  • Thomas Friedman  • foreign oil  • Energy crisis


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