The general dishonesty of Bush’s ridiculous press conference Monday has already been covered, but he did say two things that weren’t outright lies. That U.S forces will never leave Iraq if he can help it is a given, but I want to point out the one other thing Bush said that was true – before he realized and corrected himself. About half way through, the question came:
“What do you say to people who are losing patience with gas prices at $3 a gallon? And how much of a political price do you think you’re paying for that right now?”
The child-president managed to sputter:
“Look, I understand gas prices are like a hidden tax – not a hidden tax; it’s taking money out of people’s pockets. I know that.”
But, as Greg Palast explains in his book Armed Madhouse, that’s exactly what the high oil prices are – a hidden tax, government revenue. How so?
Americans pay nearly triple for gas; many of those petro dollars, of course, go to Saudi Arabia, whose puppet-princes skim enough off the top for their own coke, prostitutes and Mercedes Benzes and then spend much of the rest purchasing American securities – that is, the government debt that is driving this war machine whose mission, in part, is keeping the Saudis at the top of OPEC, thus setting that high price through production quotas.
Some may wish to keep this in mind when they pump those gallons and when they hear the Republicans claim to cut our taxes.
