The American Spectator

Better yet, what about the unions sitting on the boards of funds like Calpers following Senator Boxer’s advice? How about turning over the profits these union pension fund managers have gleaned from all those profiteering oil companies and just set up a gas fund for the rest of us — giving those of us not vested in a teachers “Big Oil” pension fund the relief at the pump that we all deserve? The idea is so…well…Jimmy Carteresque. Or perhaps I should now say Obamaesque. Morally superior. Presuming fairness. Taking the profits from the rich oil companies to give to the poor. Think of the great slogans for the anti-oil pension fund marches. Don’t Teach for Oil or Stop Rigging Teachers Retirement or No Oil for Pensions. Maybe we will even see Democrats like Senator Obama starting to refuse support from teachers unions on principle. After all, he doesn’t take support from Big Oil, right?

You have to admit this is a diabolically clever win-win strategy. You might even call it a teachable moment: liberals attack Big Oil to get votes while in fact their union pals are quietly raking in hundreds of millions from owning it, getting all the political power that comes along in the bargain. If they ever get the chance to do the Obama-Jimmy Carter windfall profits tax, the oil companies will simply pass the cost on to you and me, making us all contribute even more millions to teacher pensions every time we fill up.

Perhaps the great comic strip character Pogo provides the best slogan of all for the liberals who are now revealed as the real power behind Big Oil, the real evil geniuses making us all choose between food or gas.

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Jeffrey Lord is the creator, co-founder and CEO of QubeTV, an online conservative video site. A Reagan White House political director and author, he writes from Pennsylvania.