Chimp's Advisors Now "Clarifying" His Remarks About ME Oil "Addiction"

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON — One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting 75% of imports from there by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said yesterday that the president didn't mean it literally. What the president meant, they said, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equal to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025." He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. He said the broad goal was to displace foreign oil imports, from anywhere, with domestic alternatives. He acknowledged that oil is a freely traded commodity bought and sold globally by private firms. Consequently, it would be very difficult to reduce imports from any single region, especially the most oil-rich region on Earth. Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official told Knight Ridder News Service that Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands."

EDIT

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060202/NEWS02/602020405

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Put the lie on the front-page headline, put the retraction on p20,in 8pt

type, at the bottom.

[JuniperLea]

2. Then repeat the lie

Repeat. Repeat.

Like all other W speeches, all lies. He says the opposite of what is true.

[FormerDittoHead]

3. ...president didn't mean it literally - then jump all over Kerry's 53%...

You would think that for being facists, they could at least be consistent.

reference: Kerry claimed High School drop out rates were 53%, and everyone is doing gymnastics to see where he got the number, made it up, etc.

[WearyOne2]

4. flip flop

[Elidor]

5. "He's the president: he doesn't mean all that shit he says! Sheesh."

"You guys. Taking him literally and all that."

/bodman

[phantom power]

6. Hee hee! "Every American understands.."

Suuuure. We Americans are experts on the pragmatics of oil geopolitics. No possible confusion there...

:rofl:

[murray hill farm]

7. The retraction is for the Saudi"s..

Who did react to that part of the SOTU with considerable negativity!

[applegrove]

8. Big oil promised lower prices during the 2004 election. Be carefull

what you wish for. Called loan-sharking: "I'll do you this favour". And then you pay for it later. Seems Bush has no policy tools that can undo the power of OPEC to get what they want.

[emulatorloo]

9. Somebody alert Katie Couric, who treated Kerry's skepticism w such scorn

and derision.