The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Grease and Oil

5.7.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 2 of 6)

As for O'Reilly giving softball Katie Couric-style questions, on that I disagree. I saw the interview and while he could have asked a lot more questions he got her to come out on sanctuary cities, which is a big issue with a lot of voters. It seems all Liberals are such wusses!! They don't want to offend anyone. And like everything else that, too, starts at home. I have them in my family and I laugh at their hesitance to offend, even their kids.
-- Joan Moriarty
Pine Plains, New York

After what Bill and Hillary put us through, I can't imagine ever voting for Hilary, under any circumstances, in the primaries or in November, whether directly for President or under the dubious notion that she's an easier-to-defeat candidate. Respect has to be earned and the two of them just frittered theirs away.
-- Robert Nowall
Cape Coral, Florida

Mr. Klein is right. No one on the right should find any comfort in the tenacity of Hillary's campaign, nor should anyone be giving it any support. The best outcome for the right in this election is that Obama gets the nomination and loses in the general election to McCain. That disposes of both Hillary and Obama. I have no confidence that a general election campaign against Hillary will be particularly easy, especially because I don't think even the so-called Republican attack machine actually has the stomach to go after her with enough determination (on either the issues or her character or both) to beat her. If conservatives want to influence the Democratic primary, to the extent that they can participate, they should vote Obama, drive the stake firmly through Hillary's heart and look forward to the general election.
-- Anthony Mirvish

It is a symptom of Republican malaise and corruption that so-called conservatives have found it "fashionable" to get cutesy with the Clintons. It is, after all, far easier to try to "get along" with one's political opponents rather than confront them. One wonders, however, how exactly the Republican establishment would confront the Clintons, even if inclined to do so? And here I'm referring to policy differences, not the adultery, public corruption, abuse of power, and thick patina of sleaze which so breezily characterize the Clintons (to which their Republican friends -- such as the doddering McCain -- dare not allude).

After all, the Clinton approach to gaining and keeping constituencies was and is to bribe them with bloated entitlement payoffs, selective regulatory power, and tax policy, i.e., the same approach used by Republicans prior to their deserved losses in 2006. Naturally, the Clintons are far more ruthless but their Leninist philosophy is seen as something to be admired, rather than decried, in certain quarters on the right. Such tenacity, those Bolsheviks! So the beat goes on, our fearlessly depraved leaders on the left and right gazing admiringly at one other, both supremely pleased at their exploitation of the system for their own political and personal aggrandizement. "Noblesse oblige," they protest, "We, the cleverest among you, surely deserve the perks and favors we bestow upon ourselves and, while we're at it, we graciously offer you, the bitter masses, the elixir of "free" health care (and hence ensure our privileged station for generations to come)!" Newt is so right. A Republican bloodbath is imminent unless radical solutions and leadership come to the fore.
-- Peter R. McGrath
Winter Park, Florida

According to Philip Klein, "(T)here is absolutely nothing admirable about a politician so narcissistic and hungry for power that (she) is willing to say or do whatever suits (her) political interests at any given moment."

Mr. Klein: can you name any politician to which the above does not apply?
-- Arnold Ahlert
Boca Raton, Florida

Apparently those who presume to speak without "Spin" have their share of seemingly foolish egotists, as well.
-- Joe Holmes
Cedar Park, Texas

YES WE CAN
Re: Roger Kaplan's The Candidates and Oil:

Seize the Arab oil fields? No potential backlash to that. Right?
-- Mark Tarnowski
Minneapolis, Minnesota

We should not go and seize oil or other natural resources by force for the same reasons I should not hold up liquor stores. It's wrong and more importantly bad economics. If you can not or will not pay the price do what the economists say and find a substitute.
-- David Goodwin
Washington, D.C.

What is to prevent us from seizing the oil fields? The real question should be "why worry about it?" This is not 1973. In 1973, Middle Eastern countries were poor and backward. They had no idea how to spend their new wealth. Today, those same countries need oil revenue to feed their people. It may be hard for Americans to understand, but they need to sell their oil far more urgently than we need to buy it.

So if Saudi Arabia decides to boycott the U.S. again as they did in 1973, it won't matter to us because oil is fungible. The Saudi's will have to sell their oil to someone; they need the revenue too badly not to sell it. Whoever buys the oil that used to go to the U.S. will free up supplies from some other part of the world, such as Venezuela or Mexico and the U.S. can buy that oil. We should think of the supply of oil as a large pool. If we can't drink from one side of the pool due to politics, we can simply move to another side.

In addition, we get most of our oil from Canada and Mexico. We get zero oil from Iran. Very little comes from the Middles East. Europe gets their oil from the Middle East; let them worry about secure supplies.

Finally, the high price of oil today has very little to do with supply and demand, which have been in balance for a long time. The problem with the current analyses of the situation is that most people were weaned on Keynesian economics in which the money supply has little effect. If people would pay attention to Monetarist (Milton Friedman) or Austrian econ, they would know that the current high price of oil is mostly the result of US monetary policy that pumps too much money and credit into the economy. In other words, the price of oil hasn't risen; the value of the dollar has collapsed and fewer people want to use it. Oil hasn't caused food prices to rise; central banks have. It's wrong to blame Arabs for the "wreckage of the world's economies" when the real criminals are central bankers, especially the US central bank.
-- Roger D. McKinney
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Election 2008, Taxes, Education, Health Care, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Economics, Business, Environment, Global Warming, Military, Iraq, Iran, NATO, Conservatism, Energy, Alaska, Oil