It's Now 100% Official: Bush Is An IDIOT!!!!

Un-frikkin-believeable!!!

First seen via Atrios and Kos:

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

What the ...???? Bush and his whole White House team spend weeks preparing for this speech. It is THE speech of the year for a US president, a chance to make over old errors and set a new agenda for the year ahead. And they FUCKED IT UP???

Un. Be. Leave. A. Bull.

To understand what this means, given that this was THE KEYNOTE ISSUE in Bush's speech, let's do a little trawl around the international media:

From the Financial Times:

George W. Bush runs the risk of alienating the world’s biggest source of oil with his plan to end America’s “oil addiction”, Opec delegates, oil ministers, energy experts and even some environmentalists said yesterday.

The president’s plan to cut US consumption of Middle East oil by 75 per cent by 2025 was neither achievable nor prudent and could make investment in the industry more difficult, they said. Investment was the most critical factor in deciding whether there would be enough oil to meet future demand...

Only last year, Ali Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, called on the US and other oil-consuming countries to give producers a road map of future demand to help petro­states decide how much to spend on new production capacity. Such a road map would also help the industry avoid the pitfalls of the 1970s and 1980s, when producers spent billions of dollars on new oil production only to see demand drop – in part because of new US and European energy policies – and capacity lie idle for nearly two decades.

Mr Bush has not heeded that call, Opec delegates said.

Martin Bartenstein, the economics minister of Austria, which holds the presidency of the European Union, said: “Opec is neither evil nor an empire. It is a partner with about 35 per cent market share. It is a partner with by far the largest oil and gas reserves, so it will increase in importance in the future.”

But while promoting energy efficiency and alternative sources was generally accepted as prudent, singling out the Middle East was not, energy analysts said.

From the New York Times:

The energy proposals set out on Tuesday by President Bush quickly ran into obstacles on Wednesday, showing how difficult it will be to take even the limited steps he supports to reduce the nation's reliance on foreign oil.

Diplomatically, Mr. Bush's ambitious call for the replacement of 75 percent of the United States' Mideast oil imports with ethanol and other energy sources by 2025 upset Saudi Arabia, the main American oil supplier in the Persian Gulf. In an interview on Wednesday, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said he would have to "seek an explanation" from Mr. Bush.

Politically, both parties on Capitol Hill displayed a lack of enthusiasm. Democrats said Mr. Bush had opposed foreign oil reduction targets in last year's energy bill, and Republicans questioned the practicality of relying on ethanol and other alternatives.

Scientifically, researchers said ethanol and other alternative fuels were still years away from widespread commercial use.

Economically, energy analysts said Mr. Bush's goal of reducing Mideast oil imports would have little practical benefit because oil was traded in world markets and its price was determined by global supply and demand, rather than bought from one country by another.

And from the same paper:

On Wednesday afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Rush Limbaugh's radio program that the administration would continue to push to open part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

So it seems not everybody is the Bush administration is quite ready to dump that petroleum addiction. Could have something to do with the fact that Cheney is not even allowed near the White House these days???

Bush is now hitting the road, telling Nashville voters that alternative fuels can be produced within six years. Um, ... maybe... In the fool's own words:

"All of a sudden, you know, we may be in the energy business by being able to grow grass on the ranch! And have it harvested and converted into energy. That's what's close to happening.

"We're told that if we continue to focus on research, we'll be able to within six years have a competitive fuel to gasoline!"

Jesus Fucking H. Christ. Help us now. Please. Strike the bastard down with a lighting strike or something. Put us all out of our misery.

Listen, it's not that I don't agree with the idea of alternative fuels etc, etc... But is this really a whole new George W? El Dubya Loco, The Eco-Warrior? Or just a cynical ploy to boost his dismal popularity ratings?

Or is this maybe an effort to fulfill his 2000 pledge of reaching out across the bipartisan divide? After all, the whole weaning-the-USA-off-oil thing has been a Democrat pledge since way in 1979, when Jimmy Carter promised the USA would "never again use more foreign oil than we did in 1977" (never mind Tricky Dicky's 1971 pledge to make the US self-sufficient in energy by 1980).

Or does this just mean that Bush and his old hometown friends' US oil wells are finally drying up?

Bush himself has called in each of his past four State of the Union addresses for a reduction in the nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Despite those promises, US dependence on oil imports is at a record level. The country's petroleum production has declined as fields have been exhausted, but demand for fuel has climbed with the increased use of sport utility vehicles and vans.

For most of his presidency, Mr Bush has placed top priority on increasing domestic oil and gas production.

What a loser. What a sad excuse for a man. What a shocking indictment of today's USA.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves. All of you!!!