CONFIRMED: BUSH IS NO RONALD REAGAN – AND NEITHER IS MCCAIN

On February 11, 1985, President Ronald Reagan hosted a State Dinner for Saudi King Fahd at the White House.  It was earlier in the day at a private meeting between the two that history was made.

With oil at sky high prices and the Soviet Union producing more oil than the Saudis, the oil revenues provided Moscow with a cash cow financing an incredibly aggressive expansion of its imperialist empire.

The Soviets had added 14 colonies to their empire in recent years, and with Nicaragua and the El Salvador insurgency as its bases, were ready to make a move on Mexico.  The largest Soviet embassy in the world was in Mexico City.

With this in mind, Reagan told Fahd what he wanted the Saudi king to do:  quadruple oil production and crash world oil prices.  Fahd was stunned.  "Why should I ever want to do that? " was his response.

"Because your main competitor is the Soviet Union which has extremely high extraction costs:  it costs them many dollars to get a barrel of oil out of the ground while it costs you a few pennies," Reagan answered.  "Quadrupling your production will drop the world price below the Soviets' extraction cost and you will drive them out of the market.  You will increase your market share to the extent you will end up making much more money than you are now."

Fahd was now far more stunned than he was at first.  He quietly conferred in whispered Arabic with his closest advisor who confirmed Reagan's assertion.  Fahd looked at Reagan with respect and admiration, then inclined his head ever so slightly.  His interpreter announced, "His Majesty accepts the President's proposal." 

Within a few months oil was below $10, the Soviets' cash cow was dead, the Kremlin was going bankrupt and could no longer sustain its empire.  Just like that, what seemed impossible a few months before was now on the horizon – the Soviet Union losing and America winning the Cold War.

On June 6, 2008 – this past Friday – I wrote to a friend of mine in the White House, a close advisor to President Bush. 

He needed no reminding that on that day the DOW had tanked almost 400 points, unemployment shot up to 5.5%, oil was at $138, the dollar at 1.57 to the euro, and the Republicans face certain disaster in November.

I did remind him that always, where there is danger there is opportunity, for it is the danger that creates the opportunity.  All it takes is the courage to accept both and carpe diem.

So I suggested that presidential courage take the form of signing an Executive Order, then going on national television to explain it, in words such as these:

"Last week, the Senate wisely rejected a misnamed Climate Security Act which I promised to veto should it reach my desk – for it would have made our current energy situation far worse than it already is.

"The bill claimed it is necessary for the United States to reduce its emissions of carbon dioxide which it claimed contribute to global warming.  Yet such a reduction of US emissions will be utterly useless unless countries such as China and India do the same.

"Until they do, we cannot afford to treat carbon dioxide as a bogeyman to frighten us into blocking every attempt to increase energy production here in America.

"Our economy today is in grave danger because of the astronomical price of oil.  I don't have to explain this to you, for you feel the pain of it every time you put gas in your car so you can go to work in the morning – if you still have job.

"Every effort to increase energy production has been consistently blocked in Congress.  This creates an artificial shortage of energy leading to the current astronomical prices – and it gravely threatens our national security by making us dependent on unstable and sometimes hostile foreign energy suppliers.

"Thus I am declaring today an emergency of national security, and have signed today a Presidential Directive under my Constitutional authority to do so, ordering the following:

"1.  All restrictions other than those preserving public safety imposed by the federal government or its agencies, or by state governments and their agencies, upon the extraction of crude oil and natural gas in Alaska, in the offshore waters of our coasts, and on federal onshore lands, are hereby waived. 

This includes all environmental restrictions and those regarding the Endangered Species Act  — for these are used by obstructionists merely as a rationale to block oil, gas, and coal extraction, not to actually protect the environment or protect genuinely endangered species.

"2.  All restrictions other than those preserving public safety imposed by the federal government or its agencies upon the building of crude oil refineries are hereby waived.  This includes all environmental restrictions and those regarding the Endangered Species Act.

"3.  The depreciation schedule for deducting capital expenses from corporate federal income taxes is hereby waived for any energy-related capital investment, allowing first-year expensing of such investments.

"Yes, there will be a enormous hue and cry of protest by those special-interest groups who don't want you to have cheaper gas and a growing economy.  Let's see how loudly they protest after they – and you – see how much world oil prices drop in the wake of my announcement today.

"For it's critically important for Americans to understand and the world to realize the incredible amounts of oil, gas, and coal resources we have on our own land and off our own shores.

"As a recent report of the Interior Department reveals, there are 139 billion barrels of recoverable, untapped oil on our land and off our shores, more than any other country on earth except Saudi Arabia and Canada – plus over one quadrillion cubic feet of natural gas, more than any other country except Russia.

"Further, we have hundreds of billions of tons of coal, far more than any place on earth.

"And this is what we have now, can recover with current technology now.  There are as much as two trillion – trillion – barrels of oil in shale deposits in Colorado and other Western states, and the technology to inexpensively extract them is being developed.

"Add all of this together, and there is enough oil and gas and coal right here on our land and off our shores to provide America's energy needs at current levels for the next one thousand years.

"Yet, our energy companies are prevented by government restrictions from accessing this amazing abundance of energy – and in the case of oil, of processing it, for there hasn't been an oil refinery built in America for 32 years.

"This ends today.  America is going to start producing energy, as much oil, and natural gas, and coal as we can.  Watch what happens to prices once we do.  The fearmongers will say it will take years for this new production to come on stream – which they've been saying for years so it will never get produced.  So-watch what happens to oil prices now, after we simply start to produce.

"Then watch, with cheaper oil and gas and electricity, how our stock market rebounds, how our economy starts growing again, how much better your job prospects are.  Let's see the fearmongers try selling their fear then.

"As your president, I am taking the steps necessary to provide Americans with the energy supplies necessary to keep them safe, prosperous and free.  Thank you, and God bless America."

My friend called me back and we had a lengthy talk.  He is an extraordinarily capable, talented, and bright guy who could easily pull down seven figures a year on Wall Street or at any number of major international companies.  Yet he decided instead to make a contribution to America, to work for a president who professed the conservative values he believed in.

We agreed that if the president signs such an order and gives such a speech, oil and gasoline prices will crash;  jobs, the dollar, and the Dow will rocket up;  and public anger will then turn towards the Dems and the enviros and their lawsuits.  Then it's the Dems who will be in trouble in November.

Sure, it will create a firestorm of protest – but he will have seized the momentum, taken the offensive, put the Dems on the defensive.  And what will they say when oil drops to $80 within two weeks of his speech – and keeps falling?

We agreed that there's a real tipping point here, a chance to turn the political momentum 180 degrees with amazing speed.  The president can do it, and only the president can do it. 

But, he sadly informed me, the president won't do it.  "He's coasting, Jack, taking the safe, conventional route.  He has no appetite for the kind of bold, risk-taking action you're suggesting and what is needed so badly.  He's into nursing his popularity rating from 28% all the way up to say, 35%, and won't do anything that really rocks the boat."

It's hard to think of a more dispiriting contrast with Ronald Reagan than this.

We sighed.  All I could think of to say was, "This is why I wish Cheney were president instead."  He responded, "I have to disagree with you there, Jack.  Cheney would not be issuing the EO you want now."

"Really?" I sputtered.

"Yes," he explained, "because he would have already issued it a long time ago."

It's always good to close a conversation with a laugh.

That Dick Cheney would have been a better successor to Ronald Reagan was emphasized yesterday (6/11) in his speech to the US Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors:

"Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida. But we're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply.

Yet Congress has said no to drilling in ANWR, no to drilling off the East Coast, no to drilling off the West Coast, no to drilling off Florida. Given the high prices Americans are now paying, we should hear no more complaining from politicians who've stood in the way of increasing energy production inside this country. They are part of the problem.

And it's not just crude oil or natural gas production that's being held up. We also have to import ever larger amounts of refined gasoline, because we don't have enough refining capacity to satisfy our own demands. We haven't built a new refinery in the United States in three decades. It's high time we did so. There's not a reason in the world that our gasoline should not be made right here in the United States, at American refineries, by American workers."

Even more dispiriting than having a non-Reagan president in Bush rather than Cheney is an even more non-Reagan candidate to succeed him.  Cheney's speech yesterday was one that McCain should have given.  But as the Wall Street Journal commented:  McCain is "clueless – a don't-drill zombie."

There could not be a more clear-cut example of how masochistic and self-mutilating Pelosi-Reid-Obama Democrats are than in their total opposition to America producing more oil, gas, and coal.  Yet Bush has lost his nerve, and McCain has lost whatever brains he ever had.  Neither can defend America against it's most dangerous enemy:  the leadership of the Democrat Party.

So somehow, Americans are going to have to defend themselves.  A Gallup poll says 57% of us want to open up our coasts and wilderness areas to drilling.  Newt Gingrich has collected over 600,000 signatures for his Drill Here, Drill Now, PayLess petition and is headed for several million.  Senate Republicans have now blocked cap-and-trade and "windfall profits" taxes on "Big Oil." 

But there is no champion, no national leader who could take action, no Ronald Reagan to defeat the bad guys in Washington.  It's up to us, folks, and it's no use wishing otherwise or drowning in Reagan nostalgia.  It's up to us to elect pro-Americans to the House and Senate in November, to drill into McCain's thick skull and empty it of glowarming idiocy.

Evil most always loses to good people who act with courage and intelligence.  We have to be those people.  For if we are, evil will lose in November – despite neither Bush nor McCain being Reagan.