Gas Prices

'œFew topics seem to addle the collective brain of Washington like high gas prices,' said Jacob Weisberg in Slate.com. As gas surged in the last few days to a national average of $3.20 a gallon, both parties responded not with practical ideas but with transparent pandering. In a widely derided move, Republicans—frantic that voters will blame their pump pain on the party in power—suggested issuing $100 rebate checks to drivers. The GOP also abandoned its usual free-market principles and urged the White House to investigate possible market manipulation and price gouging. Many Democrats reacted with grandstanding of their own. Some spoke 'œenthusiastically about confiscating oil-company profits.' Others demanded a recall of the 18.4-cent-a-gallon gas tax for 60 days—ignoring the fact that higher prices might actually help the country face up to its oil addiction. We can expect Congress to be 'œpartisan, cynical, demagogic, and dishonest.' But 'œstupid' too?

All of us better wise up, said Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. The recent price spike is just a symptom of our dangerous dependency on foreign oil, and the cure isn't shaving a quarter or so off the per-gallon price. Through our national fleet of gas guzzlers, Americans are sending tens of billions of dollars to Islamic states every year. That's right: 'œWe are financing both sides in the war on terrorism.' Other 'œpetro-authoritarian' countries—including Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, Russia, and Sudan—are using oil money to bolster their repressive regimes, and blackmail any nation that dares object. At the same time, China's and India's booming economies are ratcheting up worldwide demand—and prices—for oil. This energy crisis, unlike the short-lived gas shortages of the 1970s, isn't going away on its own. Yet the Bush administration sails blithely on, 'œrefusing to ask the American people to do anything hard to put America on a different energy course.'

James Klurfeld

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Jay Bookman

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution