Addiction to Oil

Henry Payne has written a must read piece on Bush’s SOTU speech, which Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh called “great.”

In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, George Bush hit the rhetorical low of his presidency. By calling for an end to “America’s addiction to oil,” he not only embraced the radical, green vocabulary of Al Gore, but he undercut the principles of freedom, innovation, and anti-isolationism outlined elsewhere in the very same speech.

The president touted his commitment “to encourage innovation . . . and give our nation’s children a firm grounding in math and science.” But his oil-addiction comments were just the opposite, a prescription for ignorance. With his cynical pander to opinion polls and special interests, the president missed an opportunity to educate the nation on the essential role energy plays in our prosperity.

“Addiction to oil.” The phrase manages to combine economic ignorance, environmentalism and psychobabble. It’s a masterpiece of idiocy.

I know Bush is a simple-minded man who, like his father, is not interested in ideas, but isn’t there anyone in the White House with the sense and the courage to give Bush good advice? Did Vice-President Cheney read this speech?

(HT: Polipundit)