Democracy for Vancouver

With oil soaring to a record $108 a barrel amid mounting signs of U.S. economic turbulence, President George W. Bush said Monday that he was sending Vice President Dick Cheney to the Middle East to raise concerns about oil prices…

Cheney, who leaves Sunday, will meet with King Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer and the de facto leader of OPEC.

“Obviously, we want to see an increase in production,” said Dana Perino, an administration spokeswoman. “… I don’t anticipate that the vice president would have any other message than that one.”

Except, maybe, “Don’t worry, Your Excellency. George and I returning to the private sector ourselves here in a few months, and believe me, those Halliburton shares look a lot prettier at $108/barrel. Let’s just get a few pictures taken together to make the folks back home happy, and then we can try out that H&H Royal I brought you - it’s a helluva weapon.”

As former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote in The Right Man:

I once made the mistake of suggesting to Bush that he use the phrase cheap energy to describe the aims of his energy policy. He gave me a sharp, squinting look. Cheap energy, he answered, was how we got into this mess. Every year from the early 1970s until the mid-1990s, American cars burned less and less oil per mile traveled. Then in about 1995 that progress stopped. Why? He answered his own question: Because of the gas-guzzling SUV. And what had made the SUV craze possible? This time I answered, “Um, cheap energy?” He nodded at me. Dismissed.

Cheap energy ain’t good for the oil bidness. Bush and Cheney - and their very good friends the Saudis - are in the oil bidness. Case closed.