BE LIKE MIKE:

Oil-Fueled Confidence (Michael Kinsley, March 10, 2003, The Washington Post)

The United States consumes about 20 million barrels of oil a day. Eleven million of those barrels are imported, but 9 million are from domestic oil production. Oil is oil, and when events -- a war in the Middle East or an OPEC ministers' meeting in Vienna -- affect the price of oil we import from Saudi Arabia and Iraq, they have the same effect on the oil produced in the United States.

In recent months, as America has threatened and prepared for war against Iraq, the price of oil has gone from the low $20s to the high $30s a barrel. American consumers, therefore, are paying an extra $15 a barrel, or $300 million a day, or more than $100 billion a year as a "war premium" on the oil they consume. It's like a tax -- imposed as a result of government policy -- except that the government doesn't get the money. That's before the war even starts, and it is in addition to the $300 billion or so they're saying that prosecuting the war is going to cost directly. Of that $100 billion, $55 billion pays for the oil we import. But $135 million a day -- a day -- or more than $45 billion a year (minus some taxes) goes into the pockets of domestic oil producers.

"Producer" is a misleading term for people who pull oil out of the ground and sell it. "Oil extractors" would be more accurate. The oil is there, produced from leftover dinosaurs that God or nature has tossed into the recycle bin. This oil costs something to extract, but that something is less than $25 a barrel, or no one would have been extracting it before the war buildup started. So the extra $15 is a gift from Hussein and Bush.

I don't believe that Bush is prosecuting a war against Iraq in order to enrich -- or, more accurately, further enrich -- his oil-patch cronies. But we all are happier when we can make our friends happy. All this happiness among his buddies must at least make a man like Bush, who is not plagued by self-doubt or second thoughts in any event, even more confident as he marches forward.

Mr. Kinsley, who unfortunately has Parkinson's, has written several columns about stem-cell research and cloning, the gist of which, not to put too fine a point on it, is: if the research will help me I don't particularly care how many lives it costs. Thinking that way, it's little wonder he can imagine starting a war to line your cronies' pockets, but one wonders if he's not unfairly imputing his own amorality to the President.

MORE:
The Incoherent Embryophile: Bush's position on cloning makes no sense. (Michael Kinsley November 29, 2001, Slate)
Reason, Faith, and Stem Cells (Michael Kinsley, August 29, 2000, Slate)

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 10, 2003 9:31 PM