It's typical of George W. Bush. He goes to Saudi Arabia to get their help in our energy mess and it doesn't go so well. In fact, the headline in the Telegraph was "Oil leaps after Bush's Saudi trip." Bush's mission did not achieve its desired effect. The Saudis agreed to produce 300,000 extra barrels -- a number the report calls "token." And it's only a token if you believe that Bush had any success at all. The Saudis say that decision had already been made and that Bush's visit had no impact.
Associated Press has a telling paragraph:
When Bush first ran for president in 2000, he criticized the Clinton administration for high fuel prices and said the president must "jawbone" oil producing nations and persuade them to drop rates. At that time, oil was nearing $28 a barrel — less than a quarter what it is now.
The Telegraph piece tells us that "investment bank Goldman Sachs [is] predicting an average price per barrel of $141 in the latter half of the year." The price per barrel is now $127.
No wonder Republicans don't see the value of diplomacy -- their guy sucks at it. Which kind of makes Bush's decision to take a slap at Barack Obama's foreign policy ideas a brand-new kind of ridiculousness. In fact, there are a lot of ridiculous bits to Bush's appearance before the Israeli Knesset. Not the least of which is going to the Israeli parliament to talk about Hitler. Doesn't really seem extremely appropriate to me.
For his part, Bush seems to realize that this election cycle is going to be about him and how much he sucks. So Bush has, apparently, decided that if Barack Obama is going to run against Bush, then John McCain should run against Hamas and Iran. McCain has no reason to thank the president for his help. As this campaign unfolds, the White House and Team McCain are going to find out that there are many things more popular Bush -- and that one of those things are Hamas and Iran. The average person is much more concerned with those who would appease Bush...
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