European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 6, 2007, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday april 6 2007 stars and stripes Page 15 opinion to Date others have taken the rap for Rove is Louis pos dispatch editorial on election night in 2004 which now seems a very Long time ago a triumphant president Bush praised Karl Rove As the architect of his reelection roves biographers dubbed him Bush brain at the radio to correspondents annual dinner in Washington last week Rove danced and rapped to a Little ditty called my Rove last Friday Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois the senates assistant majority Leader came up with yet another nickname for Rove speaking to St Louis pos dispatch editorial writers and reporters about the administrations decision to fire eight us attorneys late last year Durbin said if s now Clear that Rove was the Eminence Grise in this whole process i mean he was All Over this process in terms of decisions being made As the new York times reported Durbin said Here was attorney general Al Berto Gonzales doing these things and Here he Gonzales is making statements to the contrary How can he have any credibility As an attorney general at this Point he cant which is Why he needs to go which became a fore gone conclusion last week when his former chief of staff Kyle Sampson publicly testified that Gonzales recollection of his own involvement in the affair was in accurate on sunday on abcs meet the press Senate judiciary commit tee chairman Patrick Leahy Dot even suggested that his re publican colleague sen Orrin Hatch of Utah was campaigning openly for Gonzales Job if s curious that Senate democrats seem to be in no hurry to press the Issue Gonzales is not scheduled to testify before the judiciary committee until april 17 and Over the weekend Leahy re fused a White House request to move up Gonzales appearance saying the timetable was one that Gonzales had requested in the meantime committee investigators Are deposing eight White House and Justice department staff members about who knew what and when about the Deci Sion to fire the eight prosecutors All of which suggests the committees real target May be Rove Rove escaped indictment in the Valerie Plame leak Case causing even vice president Dick Cheney to wonder if his chief of staff i Lewis Scooter Libby had been sacrificed to protect Rove not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the Guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder Cheney wrote in notes of one meeting so now it May be Gonzales who has to go in order to protect Rove Durbin was asked last Friday if the judiciary committee will drop its subpoena for Rove in re turn for Gonzales resignation i cant answer that question Durbin said that May change things i cant answer it we Trust that not the Deal being contemplated ifs Trou bling that the judiciary commit tee has chosen to take depositions about the firings behind closed doors instead of having those involved testify in Public the Public has a right to know if when and How the Justice depart ment became just another tool in roves drive to create a Perma nent Republican majority specifically were prosecutors fired for not being aggressive enough in pursuing Flimsy allegations of voter fraud against democrats were they fired for investigating gop officeholders or contributors and was Gonzales merely doing roves bidding Bush has vowed that he wont let Rove testify arguing that if the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to Dis cuss internal deliberations the president would not receive can did advice and the american peo ple would be ill served leaving aside the question of How Well the nation has been served by the candid advice offered this president the fact re Mains that Rove is on the Public payroll he must be accountable for the advice he offers not just to his Boss but to the country my Rove joked last week lots of people want to ask me some questions if d be Nice if he didst treat it As a joke beware medias Slick promotion of a Gas crisis George will Washington they come with metronomic regular Ity these Media stories about soar ing gasoline prices and the causes thereof news stories that always identify the same two culprits Supply and demand the stories Al ways give various Rea sons Why supplies Are tight More often Why prices include a risk Premium based on fears that supplies might become tight or Why demand is higher than it is should be Given supposedly High prices today As the Price of a gallon of regular nationally on monday soars almost to where it was measured in constant dollars in 1982 the news is Drivers offer a collective hokum As gasoline prices soar the new York times last people Are not changing their behaviour because the real in Flatiron adjusted Cost of that behaviour has not changed significantly and neither has the Cost of the commodity in question relative to disposable income the next wave of stories about soaring Gas prices will predictably trigger some politicians indignation about Oil companies profits the Day after Exxon mobiles announcement that it earned billion in 2006 sen Hillary Clinton said i want to take those profits and i want to put them into a strategic Energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart Energy alternatives and technologies that will begin to Actu ally move us toward the direction of Independence Clinton take reveals her confiscatory itch her Clunky toward the direction of suggests that she actually knows that Independence is As chimeric a goal As soviet Grain production goals were president Bush proposes reducing Gaso line usage 20 percent in 10 years perhaps after the Oil shocks of the late 1970s Gaso line consumption fell 12 percent and did not again reach 1978 Levels until 1993 this decline was produced by an abrupt and substantial increase in the Price of Gaso line which no politician least of All the presi Dent is proposing and we actually could get lower prices because the president and Vari Ous presidential candidates have become such enthusiasts for Federal subsidies for ethanol and other alternative fuels if these fuels threaten seriously to Dampen demand for Oil the saudis might increase production enough to drive Down Oil prices in order to make be Ware alternative fuels even More uneconomic than they already Are in the 20 years from 1987 to 2006 Exxon Mobil invested More billion than it earned five weeks after the company announced its 2006 earnings it said it will invest billion in Oil and Gas projects Over the next three years it will unless a president Clinton and a Democrat i controlled Congress take big oils prof its which Are much smaller than big government s Revenue from gasoline consumption Oil companies make about 13 cents on a gallon of Gas government makes much More the Federal tax is 184 cents per Gal Lon Hillary Clinton new York collects 424 cents a gallon fort nine states All but More than the Oil companies do on every gallon in 1979 president Carter an Early practitioner of the of woe school of planetary analysis today Al Gore is the Dean of that said that Oil Wells were drying up All Over the world not exactly in 1971 according to a Adelman an met economist Nono Pec countries had remaining proven reserves of 200 billion barrels after the next 33 years of global eco nomic growth Adelman says those coun tries had produced 460 billion barrels and had 209 billion remaining As for open countries in 1971 they had 412 billion barrels in proven reserves by 2004 they had produced 307 billion and had 819 billion remaining note the adjective proven in 1930 us proven reserves were 13 billion barrels then we fought a global War fuelled the larg est most sustained economic expansion in human history and achieved today elec Tricia powered information Economy today americas proven reserves Are about 30 billion barrels not counting the per haps 15 billion in the Field discovered last year in deep water 175 Miles off Louisiana coast America produces about on Quarter of the 206 million barrels of Oil it uses a Day unfortunately just As liberals love employees but not employers they want Energy in dependence but do not want to Drill in the Pristine read desolate Arctic National wildlife Refuge potential yield 104 billion barrels and Are reluctant to countenance drilling offshore Well then what can be done immediately about the gasoline crisis do Jour Ameri cans could save 12 billion of the 130 billion Gallons of gasoline they use a year if they would properly inflate the tires and they might do that if Ever soaring prices actually make gasoline unusually expensive George will is a member of Washington Post writers group prickly City by Scott Stantis