Wouldn't it be great if it were that simple? It seems that high fuel prices are affecting a bit more than my personal travel expense. Apparently it's costing a lot more to deliver products to the marketplace. I like to eat and I'm not prepared to give that up yet. Are you really saying that you don't see high fuel prices as a serious problem?

Yes, I am saying that high fuel prices is not a serious problem. Not any more than other things like OMG Rainier cherries are $6.99 a pound! Now that is outrageous! If food is getting too expensive, plant a garden.

We can blame high prices on pretty much anything... Why pick on oil prices? How about we blame all the Americans who voted democratic/republican/other in the last several elections for the situation we are in.

Borrowing a theme from Troy --- I don't think the Amish care about oil prices.

My reply will be in three separate posts.

We've got to the point where I'm getting an error message of "too many quote blocks".

I'll add part two after someone else posts to this thread.



I agree with the idea that we end government subsidies across all industries... including education and science. Let the free market take care of what comes and goes in the economy, and tax all industries exactly the same.



Money and politics. Never will the two be separated. I'm sorry to say that your idea, while a great idea, is a pipe dream.



Ahhhhh.... I entered "Oil Drilling Rights". Your search term was right on the tip of my tongue, I just couldn't think of it!



Two reasons... developing consuming countries like India and China -- and the oil futures market. Same reasons that are having an effect on corn futures. High demand, fairly static supply levels.




Hmmmmm... Good points... but my first thought is that off-shore water rights are going to be difficult to drill in, due to environmental wackos tying them up with legalities. Any idea as to whether the oil companies have full rights and no obstacles to those acres right now? Or are we talking about a few years of environmental impact studies, followed by court appeals, protests, girls like Butterfly Hill in trees to keep the oil companies from drilling?



That is an interesting point. Except the futures market is involved. Wasn't it earlier this month that the Saudis??? announce they were increasing production, and the price per barrel dropped by $5?

Again, the futures market is driven primarily by supply and demand. More oil produced at a faster growth rate than consumption's growth rate will cause prices to fall.



So how do we get the oil companies to drill now! and the Enviro wackos to leave them alone so they can do so?



Ahhhh… you didn’t, but the liberals are doing so every day, on every talk show and every interview they can get (and liberals get a LOT of media time).

That's been the case for every presidency... the industries and the players change, but the effect is the same. People sneak in and out of the white house... Nancy Pelosi meets secretly with power brokers, as did Tip O'Neil. Welcome to politics.



Sorry. That was a flawed analogy on your part. Outlaw a mechanical device that the Enviro Wackos HATE!--- Heck, even Algore says the Int Comb engine is a very, very bad thing (Earth in the Balance)... then you interpolate that out to killing people? Not the same.

The IC engine the primary way that most people consume petroleum (I'm lumping jet engines and diesel engines in there, too.... not sure if they're really IC). If we want people to stop using them, make a law and stop the use.

Cocaine used to be a primary ingredient in Coke (the soft drink). We made a law that outlawed the use of cocaine. Now Coke has a new secret ingredient that they claim is legal. That was what I had in mind.

Okay, perhaps an analogy flawed in that way so much so that you missed the point...let's try another, less caustic analogy: You say that you like the idea of cutting down a tree for fire wood on your property...I say, "Well, the logical extension of that is to cut down ALL of the trees in America!!!!" Your implication that I have any interest in banning IC engines is more than hyperbolic and while completely obliterating my meaning, it distracts from asking you to deal with the subtler points in my argument.

I don't see a benefit in outlawing IC engines...raising fuel efficiency standards? Probably a good thing.

How about some little nudges here and there rather than crafting aggressive legislation which is impossible to enforce?

Your Coke analogy is confusing. Product placement?

I don't think transparency is a pipe dream. I think McCain Feingold has done a lot to root out some of the more egregious violations of trust. This whole "lost emails" thing and secret energy meetings is just ugly and Republicans should be demanding answers right now. Look at the mess we are in? Not entirely of Bush's making, but he had the bully pulpit, the world and country behind him and a Congressional majority. How is it things got so screwed up? I don't think you can blame a Lion's share of this on environmentalists. Again...Oil companies are not drilling because it doesn't make sense for them to bring more oil onto the market. American oil companies are hoarding oil and fields just like the Saudis, Venezuelans and Russians. The high price is incredible for them. It drives up the futures markets. It's blatant market manipulation. Almost 80% of the available oil fields on federal lands are practically free for Oil Coporations to use. They want that last 20%. They want to lock it up so they can further control the market. Come on, Troy. This behavior is indefensible. It's okay to defend the market, but their reasoning is cynical and their front is a complete lie. Defend markets, not liars.

Ademdum to last post by me:

This is from THIS article on CNN.com: http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/23/news/econo...f=ib_topstories



The way I read this: Price to work in water areas… most of what is out in the ocean is deep water, which means big expense.

Of the land based, they need to do further studies… they know there is probably oil there… not how deep, what kind of rock, how feasible it is to get it out.

This website is simplistic, but has a great explanation of just how to find oil: http://www.mssu.edu/SEG-VM/introduction_to...rospecting.html

Getting the lease doesn’t always mean the lease holder has the money to develop the well… or even if its feasible to produce oil there to begin with.

My question: are the current leases for known deposits that are just as easy and profitable to get at as would the ANWR deposits?

Now… back to the regular response:



Sell record amounts of products (gallons of gas) make record amounts of profit.

I believe the numbers are something like: Oil company net profit on a gallon of gas... about 9 cents per gallon.
The federal govt. profit on a gallon of gas: 18.4

I found it interesting that not one candidate this primary season -- after acknowledging the pain of high gas prices on the American public -- did anything to get a bill before congress to suspend or reduce that tax in the short term.



I like how Obama talks about "taking money away" from the oil companies. Difference in option about government's role in managing money in the free market capitalistic society.




Agree with that idea... rewarding good behavior with tax breaks from a standard baseline is good. "Taking Money Away" from a legal company is not good.



I see a flaw in that one. Here in Indiana, the big gas guzzlers are the old 6 and 8 cylinder family sedans that have gone through a few owners. Folks usually get those because they 1: they're built better, and last longer -- so there are some more years left in them by the time a low income person buys one -- and 2: they don't have the money for even a used Honda civic. I just bought my wife a new car (she's paying for it) Honda and Toyota, the leaders in fuel efficient autos that have a good service life hold their values way too long to be a practical purchase for those who need the help the most! Low income, driving the beater that burns so much oil there's not a mosquito alive for three miles around it.

Those are the folks that dropping the gas tax will help. Don't know about you, but 18 cents a gallon, times 15 gallons twice a week will help them. That's over $5 a week to someone who might have a spare $20 left to buy lottery tickets OR Cigarettes a week. Or in the case of my 18 year old neice with her baby, that's about a can of formula for the baby.

Ryan, you think good thoughts, you just miss out on helping the little guy occasionally.



WooHoo! I got one!


Yep, I agree! But, once that company is mass producing and selling at a profit, the tax break goes away. Equal taxes across the board.



Actually, my arguments come from a different point of view. Doesn't mean they're wrong. Just different.

What do you want to eat tonight? If you didn't say Pepperoni and Sausage Pizza, you and I disagree. We'll both eat... but we'll do it differently. The point is that we both want to get our country less dependant on foreign energy sources. We just see different paths to get there

Can you read this three times to yourself, Troy. The industry with the highest profits in the history of the WORLD is holding back on developing offshore oilfields while they wait to get access to cheaper oil. I think the oil industry needs to start coming to terms with the fact that oil is going to be hard to get rather than whining, “But it’s so faaaaaaaar…*whine whine*” I think it’s right to say, “go invest in the fields you have, make those work and we’ll save the last 20% of the fields we have once you’ve completed those. The article doesn’t say that the oil industry is getting all of the oil they can…it’s trying to drill the EASIEST oil they can. I can’t blame them for trying, but just because they ask, doesn’t mean we have to say yes. Oh and I might add that by drilling in those “very difficult” areas off the coast in the last 6 years, Oil companies have avoided paying $34 billion in royalty taxes because of a loophole that lawmakers are trying unsuccessfully to close. They can do it when it suits them.

And we can barely handle the oil we are producing right now because we don’t have the refineries. Big Oil are in no rush to increase their refining capacity. They are waiting for the government to pay for it. This is corporate welfare at its greediest. A new refinery hasn’t been built in the states since 1976 and 200 have been closed since 1980. This is not big oil trying to create more access to our gas. This is Big Oil content with having limited supply and a higher price for less work.



Ummm…yeah…but these companies sell oil too. The Wall Street Journal has consistently reported oil corporations’ profit margins are almost 50% per barrel of oil. So, they may not be making much on the gasoline, but they are making a KILLING on the oil it’s made from and petrochemicals as well. Refinement also leaves other byproducts that are used in a variety of products. How did you miss that?



Again, this is not true, Troy. McCain made a weak stab at trying to suspend the gas tax but was rightfully called out as almost every economist of note showed that a summer suspension of the gas tax would save $25 for the average consumer over the entirety of the summer. Again, these sort of changes would be more costly to enact than what they would save. We’d be better off giving another economic stimulus check for $50 to every American. There really is no short-term solution for high gas prices though, Troy. I know it’s frustrating, but there really isn’t. We are simply going to have to weather some of this…but what are we weathering for when the next jump in prices could happen at the drop of the hat? We should be weathering it so we can unhitch our economy from this extraordinary fickle commodity which is NOT under our control as consumers.


I am almost certain Obama has ever said he is going to “take money away” from oil companies. I know it’s a fine distinction, but what he is proposing is taking away the handicapped tag from a driver who hasn’t been paralyzed for 6 years. The tax breaks, loopholes and other ridiculous pleasantries which the government has showered on oil companies in tougher times are now completely unnecessary. They need to be rescinded. I know it is sad to a libertarian, but it’s fair. If you want to cut taxes, let’s start with individuals and make our way to corporations.



We should be rewarding good behavior then. The oil companies have stifled refinery capacity, balked at drilling in available oil fields because they were moderately more expensive to develop, engaged in anti-competitive practices with other energy suppliers, supported anti-American regimes, propped up tyrannical, un-Democratic governments, spilled millions of gallons of oil, supported terrorist networks and yahoos like Hugo Chavez and pretty much flipped America the bird (an oily one) when we’ve said we need to shift our policies. What the hell are their tax breaks rewarding? Ugly business this.






I really take umbrage at the suggestion that I am somehow out of touch with people this is going to affect…before you paint me as this high-living New York debutante, I was raised in a trailer park in South Dakota and my folks are lower-middle class Minnesotans. We don’t come from rich stock and we work hard for what we earn. A lot of my family and friends are living hard through this and when they hear that it will be $25 for the whole summer they laugh. $25 is like 27 cents a day for the summer. That just doesn’t add up, Troy. It won’t have an appreciable effect on almost anyone’s life. If things are that tough, those people shouldn’t be buying lottery tickets or cigarettes. Formula I understand…but $3 a week doesn’t amount to much. These are tough times and we need to consider conservation as individuals and as a country.


Actually Troy, if your math is wrong, your sources are incorrect and/or twisted as to distort the facts and your entire worldview is so colored by your political orientation as to not be able to embrace ideas which the GOP finds offensive regardless of their veracity, I don’t think it counts as a “different point of view.” The world is not flat…that’s not a different point of view. It’s just not true, however you couch it. You really have just been spewing Republican talking points. I would like to believe my mindset has been result oriented and a little more diverse than that. If you stop listening to these hack pundits who peddle self-righteousness in exchange for honest consideration of the issues at hand, you might have a better grip on your personal ideology and not just be a mouthpiece for whomever lobbies the GOP the hardest.



Well, I love Pepperoni and Sausage, so that’s moot. The only way to become truly less dependant on foreign sources of energy is to tap the ones we have at home and stop waiting for conditions to be most beneficial to the pocketbooks of Big Oil. That includes alternative energies and we should be giving them at LEAST the same breaks we offer big oil while demanding that Big Oil exploit the opportunities they’ve already been given. They are going to do it eventually…they are just waiting us out, hoping we’ll get hungry enough to give them the whole pie. It’s simply dishonest.

I don’t think you are intentionally deceiving anyone. I just think you have been fed some bad information and though I risk coming across as arrogant, I think these issues are important enough to correct disinformation when I see it.

i'm talking about all of it. the world is so heavily polluted, i thank god i dont have any children. i am very worried about how things are going, the warning signs were a long while back, but no one paid any attention - they kept saying ... 'soon... it will be a problem....' but now its sooner, rather than later.

there are no more clean rivers or streams. there is barely any land that hasnt either been drilled on, dumped on, or built on.

and you want them to drill in alaska? so gas can be cheaper for you? and what happens when there is a drilling accident? its bad enough the oil tankers have had their go at it and now you want to make sure its all destroyed.

the world is in such a sad state, i'm afraid all of this 'green' stuff is just a bandaid.

We're pretty darn close on this. I just don't see any reason to raise federal gas tax up to the UK levels to get people to stop driving. We can't do that in many parts of this country. Indianapolis is a nice city, but our mass transit isn't ramped up to handle a majority of the workforce leaving their cars at home.

My wife's drive to work is about 4 miles one way. I checked the bus routes. She'd have to walk ½ a mile, then be on a 20 mile ride with three transfers and about an hour's commute.

I see the "punish the public" route as the worse way to get the goal of energy independence accomplished. I love the idea of encouraging companies to participate in the free market, and receive tax breaks for results. I don't like throwing government money at a problem, when the free market works better, faster, and more efficiently than government ever will.

BTW: the military is going to continue to be the primary consumer of petroleum in this country, even after we get our atuos off the oil dependency. They'll need oil for many more years to fuel planes, tanks, hummers and rockets. So, we'll have to keep our domestic supply going.



See the end of this post about the “little guy” and the choices they make.

Frankly, I’m tired of everyone holding up the little guy as the reason to despise republicans or the capitalistic society. The soviets had a heck of a lot of little guys, and very, very few folks in the middle class.

Our country is great at making millionaires. We’ve got a swelling “black middle class” that is blossoming into a wealthy class. Why? Because people are figuring out it’s THEIR own choices that make them successful or poor. Not the government’s choices.

The government can make it harder to succeed… via a poor education system, confiscatory tax rates, enabling and training an entitlement class instead of opening the doors for a “you wanna be rich!” class of achievers.



Actually, a friend of our is getting almost 70 mpg in just city driving. She's hauling just herself and a few small kids. Darn good fuel economy.



Hydrogen and compressed air are just the beginning of alternative fuels for automobiles… you know, those things that owned by the citizens of our country. That things that are emptying their wallets pretty darn quickly every week at the gas pump. Get new autos that use fuels other than gasoline out to the masses, and make a serious dent in oil usage in this country.

Technology increases are easy… but new products based on new tech take time. There is a growth cycle you’ve got to grow through to get the new stuff. Back in 1980 did you ever envision the iPod? My first PC had less computing power, and used more energy than my cell phone/pda today.

You have to develop the technology, then refine it. We’ll need to do that with alternative fuels for autos. Geothermal isn’t going to work in a car or a big rig truck for many, many years. But Geo Thermal CAN power the industry that makes the alternative fuels.




None of those, except nuclear, are directly going to power an automobile. The enviro wackos won't like all of us driving around with small nuclear plants in our trunks.

BUT, all of those could be used to power the compression of hydrogen gas into a liquid, or compressing regular air to power the Nano compressed air car.

Doing so isn't an over night, or even within a year fix. We've got to get the enviro wackos cooperating on this stuff, and stop stalling. Wasn't there a move to put a wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard (a very windy part of the eastern seaboard) and the elite Hollywood types with their vacation homes there got it stopped?

Let's tell those folks to take a flying firetruck at a rolling doughnut, and put the wind farm there. Seriously. Work together on these things.



You know that I'm gonna write it down that you agreed with McCain?


Consider his stance on these two issues: Death Penalty. Global Warming.

At best, O'Reilly is a libertarian. Not conservative. He runs a good show, and sticks it both sides with hard questions. I rank him up there with Russert on questioning of guests. Difference is in the style and delivery of the question.



Most of what you refer to there is highly misreported. I've been a regular listener (more active around election times) since Clinton I, when I learned to not be a liberal. Misquoting Rush, or taking quotes waaaay out of context is a national sport with the media. I'm looking for the Huffington Post to start passing out gold medals for it soon!



And people go to jail for a long time when they knowingly and willfully lie in a court of law. Unless you're privileged. People go to jail for driving drunk, running off a bridge and leaving a girl to drown. Unless you're privileged. Yet Teddy Kennedy got to write the education bill that Bush pushed through. There are too many cases of this on both sides of the aisle. And… see below about my niece… her father’s FIRST sentence was three months. Repeat offenders (like him) go away much longer later in life.

Class envy and class warfare are not good for anyone. This is the easiest country to get rich in, by far, in the world. Seriously. No one is putting anyone down in a hole. Let's work to uplift the people in this country, by leveling the playing field.

Oh, my niece with the baby... has had every advantage possible for a young girl: Raised by a single parent, her father in and out of jail for selling drugs (my sister dumped him shortly after getting preggers, when he got arrested the first time)... my sister worked her fanny off to keep a roof over their head. My mother lived with them to be the second caregiver... and my dumb niece still dropped out of school, got pregnant twice just to "Show you that I'm an adult!" -- she just tried moving to liberal Mass. and is now back in Indy cause she wasn't getting enough govt. aid out there.

My point: It's HER fault she doesn't have a diploma. It's HER fault that she's an unwed mother. It's HER fault that she can't keep a job or drive a car. Not Limbaugh's, not Hillary Clinton's fault. It's my niece’s own fault.

As family, tough love is painful to both parties... but that's where we are with her. She's got to figure out how to succeed or fail on her own. Kids in the ghetto can get out. A lot do. But, a lot of them keep making dumb choices and blaming "da MAN!" for puttin' 'em down!

I actually like the prices of gas being higher as that reduces consumption and thus a greener planet. I want to drill everywhere to reduce our dependence on middle east oil.

You can't worry about accidents ... they will happen. Are you worried about nuclear reactors? I am more worried about them having an accident than a spill in Alaska.

The world is not in a sad state. This is the best time to live in the history of mankind and it only getting better!

Troy,

You keep implying that I am asking the government “punish the public”…that’s a hyperbolic reaction the same thing as asking consumers to live within their means during our involvement in two wars and trying to conserve. I am suggesting that we ask the public not to punish itself and reward those who find creative means to help our nation unbuckle ourselves from our oil dependence. That’s not punishing anyone…the buzzword sounds nice though doesn’t it? It makes for a strong statement, though it is completely lacking in any substance. Our country is collectively in trouble here.

You seem to be trying to assert an ideological solution on a practical problem. I am going to ask you to think outside the box here and consider the possibility that limited government support for national behaviors is going to be the only tangible thing we can do right now in response to high oil prices. There is nothing we can do to bring the price of gas down right now and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can get to the hard work of making a number of diverse energy options available to us.

This simplistic idea that any time the government gets involved in ANYTHING that we are just “throwing money at the problem” isn’t a real response. It’s a knee-jerk partisan script used by some whenever someone proposes any sort of government program. Let’s give the bombastic “government-is-bad” slogan a rest for a short bit and cut through the chaff and find out which solutions are available. I really don’t think we are on opposite sides here. We both want to secure our energy independence as a nation. That’s the main thrust of both of our arguments.



The Republicans are in trouble right now not because of anything the Democrats have said. The GOP is fielding some very substantial criticism recently over the effects their policies have had on those with less in this country. The GOP has had every advantage from 2000-2006 from goodwill after a terrorist strike, an anemic democratic party, a president in office, a GOP led Congress, TWO Republican appointments to the Supreme Court (which has been making some pretty conservative friendly decisions recently, I might add)…the list goes on and on. The Conservatives in this country got exactly what they asked for. The country wrote a blank check and look at what happened.

People are mad at the GOP not because of some vague assumption that they are against the poor. Some of the policies and or mistakes made by this largely GOP led decade have put the middle and lower classes in quite a financial bind in the last few years. There has been direct cause and effect in many circumstances. Look at the state our country is in. The Conservatives have dropped the ball on almost every major economic and foreign policy decision or execution of a policy in the last 8 years. People are choosing to identify with Democrats right now not because their policies are necessarily better, but because the GOP’s have been such dismal failures.

What are we going to do now?



Brass tacks:

We have two basic ways of transporting energy. One is liquefied or solid fuels and the other is direct transmission via our existing electric grid.

Oil is a liquid fuel that, much like coal, has stored an extraordinary amount of energy in it due to millions of years of compression. Both are limited resources that by all accounts are getting harder to retrieve from a dwindling number of locations. So, we are entering the back half of a bell curve that is used when illustrating “peak oil.”

http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uplo...3/peak_oil2.jpg

“Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline. If global oil consumption is not mitigated before the decline phase begins, a world energy crisis may develop because the availability of conventional oil will drop causing prices to rise, perhaps dramatically.”

Additionally, no matter how much we increase production at this point, we can’t push our position on that bell curve back. Increased production has been assumed and factored into the equation that calculates peak oil. And the scary thing: Increasing domestic production won’t bring the price of gas in the United States down because the oil is being sold on the global market…not just to U.S. refineries or even at a discount to us. So…the reason prices are going up is because speculators know that oil has peaked and from here on out, those resources are going to be harder and hard to get.

Bottom line. Oil is not a resource we can depend on as we have for the last 100 years. We need another source of energy and we need it now.

The development of new SOURCES of energy is what is important…much moreso than new methods of transmission. We have the infrastructure in place to move and retail liquid fuels as well as electricity to people who need it. We can use existing, modified filling stations as well as the electrical grid to get this energy to consumers.

The grid allows us push to create something like the Chevy Volt which runs on rechargeable batteries (though is not NEARLY ready for prime time), but as McCain and many others have pressed, we need to create batteries which can store much more energy in a smaller space. Once we refine the existing technology of battery power, we can feed the electric grid from whatever local source we have.

Of course, we aren’t going to be able to retrofit our countries shipping (air, freight rail and big trucks) nearly as quickly as the autos, but we have to encourage and reward aggressively research into alternative sources of energy. Let’s leave the gasoline and oil for our big rigs if that’s what it takes. Again, I am NOT proposing getting rid of IC Engines overnight. I am talking about aggressively developing alternative energy sources and technologies as a national policy rather than mindlessly sucking on the teat of fossil fuels.



Any source of energy we can find can be used to power the batteries of cars directly or compress fuels for use via a filling station. ANY source. We already have people using large amounts of solar, wind and geothermal power in their private homes and selling the excess back to the power companies. These are smart, sustainable options that Big Oil has been actively undermining by using government, so if you want to whack away with your libertarian scythe, try giving that a few swings.

So, you can see why some people think Big Oil is evil, right? I think it’s disingenuous not to acknowledge some of the criticisms people on the left and right have had with Big Oil’s behavior in the last few years. They have been actively limiting our energy options in American for their own profit while evading their fiscal responsibilities to our country through a series of extremely shady legal maneuvers. I have a friend whose Dad was a Big Oil lawyer for 25 years and he just quit out of disgust over the kind of greed and market manipulation he’s seen going on. He’s as conservative as they come and certainly one of the millionaires you mention.



Troy…just trying to get an idea where you get all of your priceless insight on how easy it is to get out of the ghettoes and grow up as a poor, black child in America. I live a block and a half away from what are known as “The Projects” in Brooklyn that houses some of the poorest people, primarily black and Hispanic, in our country. Perhaps it makes you feel good to make grand statements about self-sufficiency and libertarianism, but your arguments don’t hold water when put up against the extraordinary challenges some of these people face when they wake up. Every. Single. Day.

On the whole, these communities are full of people who are doing every conceivable thing they can to pull themselves out of poverty, make sure their kids get a reasonable education and shelter themselves from the crime that is endemic in such poverty. Every single day is a war. Most of our white parents and grandparents couldn’t even conceive of the challenges these communities face. The system is stacked against them in ways you refuse to acknowledge. How the hell does THAT market correct itself? On this point, you are leaning on an old, very old tactic that tries to evenly apply expectations across our society when society doesn’t react equally to our efforts. All things being equal, a black person in this country has to work MUCH harder to create simple financial stability for their families and this is purely based on society’s reaction to their RACE.

Seriously. I know it’s a pipe dream, but for a moment, stop deferring to poorly educated, badly misinformed white, male, entitled entertainers who masquerade as journalists. Whatever your frustration with the liberal media bias, their shows are just disgusting reflections of that and don’t provide any real solutions or hope for the future of our country. I listen to them and they are bloviating, narcissists who are making millions off of our willingness to come back to them day by day and ask them to lie to you again and again and again.

There is a lot of information out there and I know it can be hard to take in facts that are contrary to your point of view, but I think it would behoove all of us to start listening a little harder to more diverse sources, shedding our partisan skins and start parsing facts and options. You can’t have it your way and compromise at the same time.

You're falling into the class warfare trap that the left loves to throw out every election year. The oil companies are rich, make them pay for it.

Why should a business be required to produce a product at an expense greater than the profit they get from selling it on the open market?

Let's take it step by step. If you've got links with better info on how companies prospect then drill for oil, please share. There's a ton of reporters that don't know their butts from a hole in the ground giving reports about this field... and I bet they've got an agenda, and not a realistic understanding of the industry.

The old way of finding oil was the Jed Clampet way (barely kept his family fed)... look for oil seeping from the ground. Well, those days are long gone. The new way of finding oil is a lot of geographic surveys, core sampling (drilling a small hole really deep to see what kind of rock is down there), blast/seismic profiling. They don't actually "find" oil. They find promising geoligic formations that indicate that oil is probable (at best) or possible.

When a geologist thinks that there is a good chance of oil under the surface, an oil company can spend upwards of $200,000 to drill a prospect well in hopes of finding oil. If they are very lucky, they find it first try. If not, they fill in the hole... move the rig and try again. They do this until the money runs out, or until they find a strike.

The first step is identifying where there might be oil. Once identified as a likely area, a drilling company (not always the same as "Big Oil" that we all know and love) attempts to lease the mineral rights from the land.

Many times, the leases are granted, and no fields are ever developed. This can happen because a "lower" budget investor buys the lease, and can't come up with the finances to develop it. Other times, a lease is purchased, knowing that it's cost prohibitive to produce oil at that location -- but, technology may make the oil more cost effective to produce at a later date. Betting on technology increases lowering the cost to produce is a long term venture. Many of the current leases probably fall into this type of speculation purchase. A drilling/prospecting company may purchase that lease, and sit on it for years, because the current price won't support drilling in those areas. But, if the lease is open, then someone will get it... kind of like when an investor buys an empty waterfront lot in a new housing subdivision. They may not intend to develop it right away, but they will eventually.

So, a lease means that the oil prospecting and drilling company gets rights to explore for and produce the oil resources that *might* be accessible there. If they're one of the smaller companies, they seek investors to help them pay for the initial research and prospect wells. If they strike oil, then they need more money to build the production facility.

That's not all. They've got to get the oil from the well, into a pipeline somewhere. Until you know you've got oil for sure, and what it will cost to remove it (some oil is easy to get out, other oil is tougher, and costs more in equipment and techniques to get out), you don't know whether it's worth the additional expense of extending pipelines to your drilling location. More money needs to be spent on the pipeline.

Once the oil is up and shoved into the pipeline toward the refinery, there are still more expenses. Royalties. The oil company that produced and sold that oil on the futures market for a contracted price, now has to pay royalties. If it's federal or state land, that is usually about 27 percent or so of the per barrel sales price. If the land is privately held, then the landowner gets the royalty rate set in the origninal lease agreement.

So, there is a lot more than just poking a hole in the ground and backing a truck up. There are tons of expenses, even on shore. And every step of the way, there are environmentalists not just watchdogging them, but in many cases, trying to keep the production from happening.

Now, you're wanting an entire industry to get going and just start drilling holes, while telling them they've got to give up their outrageous profits. Yet it costs money to drill holes. They're rich -- they can afford it!

Heck, John Corzyne is rich. Let's take all of his money (we'll leave him a few hundred thousand) and give it out to the homeless folks in Jersey. He can afford it. He's the governor. He's making enough at that job.

Plus, oil companies need to post bonds to drill, and they need to have cash in reserve to clean up the site, once the wells are dismantled and abandoned. All of this adds to the cost of drilling for and producing oil.

My point: it costs a lot to make a long term investment in producing oil. The leases are cheap up front, so they're easy to get. The bonus is at the back end, when the land actually produces oil and the royalty payments roll in.

Bush actually helped the gulf coast states with oil. They used to only get their royalties on wells in the gulf between 3 and 6 miles off shore. Now they get a higher royalty fee from wells in the gulf well past the 6 mile mark. I'm sure the gulf states are still pissed over that one!

So... does it make sense for an oil company to invest in a well that consistently needs oil to be priced at, say (for example) $150 per barrel to be a feasible production site -- if the oil companies see the potential for oil prices to drop below that point over the long term?

If the cost of production goes up, or the price paid for the product drops, the oil prospecting/drilling companies won't recover their investments in the short term run on the well. I don't know of any other industry (except the fed govt) where operational expenses outpace income generated that stays in business long.

I think you guys just like hearing yourselves type.

Actually, Ryan and I are doing a great service to the patrons of OSP.

By having us debate the issue, we're getting the info out in front of the voting public.

Tami recently made a statement, and Jim called her on it. Ryan and I are providing lines of reasoning and arguments that will educate, and perhaps get Tami and Jim to look beyond what the media says -- doing their own research.

Instead of just listening to the liberal left media, or Rush Limbaugh -- OSPers get both sides of the argument.

Ryan and I actually care about our fellow OSPers.

Aren't you happier now, knowing that we're just looking out for you.

Especially for you, Shane! With your journalistic training and contamination, we know you'll need special care! It only took me about 10 years after graduating J-school to shed the last of my liberal tenancies.

How 'bout everyone tune out the talking heads and think about issues on their own. I don't need Al Frankin, Glenn Beck, Rush, or Keith Olbermann to think for me. And Troy, a lot of radical lefties call the media "the corporate, right wing" media.

In my experience, most reporters really do try to tell people what's going on. My editors never told me how to portray a story. And when I was a city hall reporter in Saratoga Springs, NY, most of the Democrats in power at the time accused me of being a Republican.

Both sides can be equally full of shit. And in my experience, the truth was usually found somewhere in the middle. But carry on if this bickering makes you feel important.

ummm -- I prefer to just get my info from The No Spin Zone... But it really doesn't matter -- I just vote straight republican and don't even pay attention to the names.




It keeps them off the street.

Hey, I see you have your new mini in your new avatar. Are you wearing any pants? I am certain a bunch of us want to know that!

of course I'm wearing pants... the underwear is the questionable part.

One pulls the lever without thinking. One leaves his lever swinging in the wind. One can only hope the two never meet. They'll both think they are in Vegas.

That is the most cleverest and funniest thing I have read in a long time!

jim called me on what? i dont need to look beyond the media to see that the world is in trouble.

We have to get the info somewhere to make educated choices. Most people still rely on traditional news sources (although print media is being moved onto the web).

The reasons the left wing thinks the media is now on the right, is because the left wing has lost it monopoly on the media.

To be clear, I'm talking about the washington beltway and big city coastal media (NYC and LA). The NY Times front page sets the agenda for both the network news and the other large city papers.

This past weekend, as I was researching the oil topic Ryan and I were discussing, I was appalled at the lack of journastic integrity that I was finding in the oil stories. Rule #1, show both sides of an issue was sadly lacking.

Most of the stories I came across (CNN and MS-NBC) took a thesis, and showed one side of it: Peak Oil, Leases, etc. The few times they did cover the opposing side, it was by a 3 to 1 ratio in the number of paragraphs.

The left in this country got used to having the networks and major papers parrot democratic talking points. CNN during the Clinton years was a prime example of one sided reporting on major topics.

Once we break out of the major cities, then local politics takes over. The papers I've worked for (one owned by the Quayle family) have been great at balancing their coverage. Heck, they even sent me out to do a three part series on what to do with the Carnegie library: Build new, Add on, or do something crazy with it. I had my own personal preference, but I worked through all three stories fairly, and was complimented by several of the library board members for playing fair with the stories!

Contrast that with an avowed "somewhere to the left of Karl Marx" reporter a few years later. That man was skilled asking leading questions, and then taking a quote from his recorder, keeping it in context, and still getting the soundbite to make the speaker say something he didn't mean. The reporter was extremely talented, but he kept the editor and the publisher busy with meetings as local politicians and business owner came in with "I never said that!"

Our guy would get the tape, play it back, and they'd storm out of the office crying foul because he would consisntantly find the one quote that could be taken out of context, but still look in context. This dude actually gloated that he was able to run the mayor out of office because she didn't know the town animal shelter was mismanaged!

Those are the reporters that give journalism a bad wrap. But he was very dedicated to the profession. He just had his own agenda and wore it on his sleeve. Last I heard of him, he was somewhere on the east coast doing investigative reporting for one of the major papers.

So, small and mid sized town papers and media stations in what the coast residents call "fly-over" country are where you can usually find balanced journalists who take their profession seriously. There are a few odd balls with an axe to grind. The editorial page and collumnists will always have an axe to grind, but the front page, city and state pages, as well as the sports section are usually fairly balanced.

It's the national media that needs to get their act together on showing both sides of an issue.



Of course. You didn't agree with them. They saw the media in washington agreeing with Daschle, Pelosi, and Reid. Why wouldn't you take the same path and puff piece them, while hammering the republicans?



You know, there used to be two newspapers in the world with official names of "The Truth". One was in my home county: Elkhart Indiana.

The other was Pravda, the official journalistic mouthpiece of the Soviet empire.

Truth is a fleeting notion. In politics, both sides are true, because politics is based on personal perspective. It's how the media outlet reports the daily he said/he said of the political arena that determines their bias.

Yes, there is a difference between where you and I worked, and the beltway boys and girls (NY Times, LA Times, Chicago, Atlanta, et al). Please assume that when I talk about the media bias with Ryan, I'm referring to the national big boys... not the average joes out in fly over country.

This is true Troy, but there is a difference between getting the information and getting peoples’ interpretations of the information. O’Reilly and Rush are first and foremost NOT journalists…they are self-identified as entertainers and have made a name by bashing anyone who could lay claim to being an intellectual. When the hell did being smart and rational suddenly become a deficit? They have both acknowledged their biases time and time again and yet people like you seem to go to them as some sort of counter-weight to what you perceive to be “liberal media bias.” It’s an actively cynical response that is not righting the perceived bias, but instead increasingly polarizing the national discussions we very badly need to be having right now.



Perhaps The NY Times and Washington Post have some bias, but it is not by fabricating information or simply denying the right of other viewpoints to exist. I think one can reasonable assert that FOX News is composed primarily of Opinion and Gossip programs and thus of injecting a very inaccurate declaration of “No Spin” and “Fair and Balanced” to the equation. Not to mention their affiliation with TMZ. “Can you believe that these strippers took photos with police officers?!!! How immoral! (click here for the photos.) I think any reasonable news consumer, conservative or liberal, has to roll their eyes at this.

In the last ten years Fox has consistently set new lows in its quest for ratings and apparent desire to “level” the political playing field. Any low hanging fruit is game. Of course not ALL of the coverage is this way, but I am appalled that it took an anchor referring to a loving gesture between a Presidential candidate and his wife as a “Terrorist Fist Jab” to get fired. That’s the watermark for what’s acceptable at Fox. Everything but that has been acceptable. The commentators on the show have been repeating assertion that Obama is Muslim, that he was trained at Madrassas, that he is unpatriotic because he sometimes doesn’t wear a flag lapel pin, that he hates America. If you believe everything which Fox has claimed, you could honestly say that, “Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.” Doh! And you are bitching about journalistic integrity? Come on, Troy. I am starting to question your journalistic integrity…taking pictures for a newspaper is one thing, but does not a journalist make.

This insistence that conservatives finally have their own news source is all fine and well, but I kind of cringe when people equate the coverage they offer with what is being offered in The New York Times or Washington Post. I don’t say these papers don’t have a bias, but their bias is displayed through aggressive, intelligent reporting, not baseless smears. There are a few exceptions to this, but mostly what we have seen, especially in the last 8 years of the Bush presidency is traditional media outlets questioning not only Bush’s rationale for the war in Iraq and also their execution of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just today, American Military deaths in Afghanistan for the first time topped those in Iraq.

When the mainstream media started to question Bush and Company about their execution of both wars, almost every Fox News program accused them of lying, slandering, pandering and being unpatriotic and not supporting the president for partisan reasons. I think it’s pretty clear now that this demand for transparency by most media outlets was necessary counterbalance to the unprecedented expansion of presidential power we’ve become aware of. I am not saying that these expansions haven’t been necessary but the media’s job is to demand and create that transparency, especially when American blood and treasure, not to mention our international reputation are at stake. Fox has consistently forwarded this perception that ANY dissent is unpatriotic. It ugly, violently partisan and neither fair nor balanced.

And at the same time, have you SEEN some of the crap which Fox has reported?!!!! TROY?! Come on…it may feel good, but it doesn’t mean it’s right.

So, when I hear most people saying Fox is “Fair and Balanced” I think they do it with a smirk, thinking, “This is balancing out that friggin liberal media bias. Take that NY Times!” So, it’s balancing, not balanced. If it were balanced, half of the shows would be providing similar liberal perspectives. And don’t even mention that straw man Alan Colmes is a pariah amongst even moderate liberals. He’s like a clown version of what Republicans hate most about stereotypical liberals.



Why do those other news outlet pick up the New York Times stories? Because they are primarily in depth reporting, intelligent and well-considered, even if they are biased. And Fox News doesn’t set the agenda for American media? Several times a week, Fox’s commentary shows grab on to a story, quote or idea and collectively hammer on it until the media at large is forced to respond, whether or not it dignifies a response. This happened with accusations of Obama being a Muslim, the lapel pin nonsense, his wife’s claims of being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life or saying “whitey” (unbelievable) rather than “why’d he”, calling Michele Obama Barack’s “Baby Mama.” Again and again, Fox treats every potential story as a massive breaking news story before they even know the facts of what happened. They fabricate crisis or allow it to be fabricated again and again.

You can criticize The New York Times for driving some media coverage, but they tend to drive the coverage with stories about policy, our treatment of our vets, detainees and other much more substantive issues. If they were like Fox News you would see headlines like this:

“McCain Calls his wife a C*NT in 1992.”

“McCain jokes about beating his wife!”

“McCain accused of inappropriate relationship with Lobbyist”

“McCain Buckled and Gave up American as a P.O.W.!”

And then the Times would repeat these claims again and again and again and again. Instead, these stories get buried in the back of the paper IF they get covered at all. Most of the opinion people won’t even touch this stuff. The glee with which Fox pastes these stories across their website’s front page is disgusting. They scream first and research later.


Clearly this is an opinion on your part, but were it true even entirely, does it warrant a response by Fox News to do the exact same thing for Conservatives? I don’t recall there being scandals about the Department of Ed paying New York Times commentators to parrot their beliefs. Fox News has been caught again and again front-loading their programs with guests who feeding them info directly from the White House and Pentagon and GOP. These people are introduced as non-partisan consultants and in the most recent case, all of the “generals” they had on had received talking points directly from the white house about what they should say and they SAID it. No one questioned it.



In addition to being disingenuous criticism, the entire latter portion of your post was just a jumbled mess of empty nothing so you could imply that The New York Times was just like that Commie Rag Pravda. Let’s be incredibly clear here about Pravda’s major purpose which is to feed government propoganda to the people of Russia. Right now, Fox is has become the most powerful arm of the Republican party and White House and your attempts to justify it’s existence and behavior are not honest. You live in the monkeyhouse, my friend. When you live in the monkeyhouse, it can be hard to realize how it stinks to high heaven.

What other sources of news do you REGULARLY read? When you get a BIG story from Fox, do you go look around for other info? It doesn’t seem like you do. It seems like you accept the interpretation offered by people who are vehemently against any sort of sissy intellectual, rational thought that tells them, “No.” It’s like a news outlet run by toddlers.

Troy, you can puff up your chest and support this junk all you want. The American people are starting to run to Keith Olberman now, which I think is just as bad a mistake. I think pretty soon you’ll be praying for the good old days when biased news coverage was about facts and investigative journalism. Fox has lowered the bar. Ugh.

omg - that is hysterically funny......

Ryan,

We'll have to disagree on this one. I could copy your post almost verbatim, and switch left for right, CNN for Fox, etc.

Left leaning broadcast news networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC
Right Leaning broadcast news networks: Fox

Seems a little tilted to the left.

My problem with the NYT setting the agenda isn't with what they write... it's that their angle... their attack line is what is adopted by the other lib news services. The LA times will write their own stories... but the form of attact parrots what the NYT said earlier in the day.

It's their take on how to approach the issue of the day that the other media outlets copy. If the hot buzz-report is that McCain shouldn't be elected because he wear his underwear two sizes too big -- the NYT would probably come up with an story lead that McCain is trying to imitate black youth, and cast aspersions that the old geezer is trying to act young and fly... then that same reason will make the rounds across major paper front pages, and will probably show up on Hardball, Larry King, and the Sunday morning pundit shows. We'd hear the same "trying to look young and fly" all over the media.

Shep Smith, would probably just report it, quote what the other guys in the media are saying about the issue, and question why McCain's underwear was important to the media!

It's not the detailed in-depth reporting from the NYT... it's the angle they take when reporting that sets the stage for the rest of the media.

It's interesting, that in the broadcast media, we now have Pelosi pushing the fairness doctrine bill again. Air America died a slow and pitiful death, while the right wing talk shows (note: I did NOT say journalists) are getting great ratings and selling ads at outrageous prices because they're popular. The dems don't like people disagreeing with them-- and they REALLY don't like that their ideas can't get traction in a market like talk radio-- so they attempt to silence their competition rather than compete on equal, free market terms.

Why do we still have taxpayer funded NPR radio? Six hours a day (morning and evening) on how many stations nationwide? I believe we've already agreed that NPR does have a liberal bias in it's reporting. They balance that with conservative commentators, but the reporting has a definite liberal slant.

And Pelosi is pissed because Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and Michael Reagan dominate political talk radio, while Al Sharpton, Tom Dashchle, Algore et al can't capture enough of an audience to sustain a liberal radio network.

As for folks getting fired for dissing Obama: why are we still letting the guy who wrote this book run around in public... let alone run for public office? If insulting a public figure is a problem... then he needs to be long gone.

As for why I'm qualified to make judgments like this: my bachelor of science degree in journalism has probably puffed up my head pretty big. You know how we J-school grads are.

Then do it! I challenge you to come up with five examples from the last 2 months from the New York Times that reflect the kind of oversimplified, unsubstantiated dirt that I quoted being pushed by FoxNews every single day. Now we aren't talking about them going after conservatives more than liberals. It’s one thing to use logic and truth to attack something which you believe needs to be more transparent. We are talking about them repeating lies, slander and innuendo over and over and over again.



See...here's my thing...I expect my news outlets to do detailed, in-depth reporting. That’s what journalism is, biased or otherwise. If they have an angle, so be it, but FoxNews doesn't do in depth reporting. They do just enough reporting to come up with a possible scandal and before they've confirmed anything, they hand it to their pundits and post it on their website which forces every other news outlet to cover it. With this kind of "journalism", all of the other news outlets are the ones who have to do the hard reporting and end up having headlines over the next few days that refute the complete lack of integrity in the stories. It's shoddy reporting. And then Fox says, "Oh look there...the liberal media defends the liberal politicians. See? See?" Nah...the "liberal" media was doing the job Fox SHOULD have done in the first place. FoxNews is generally VERY lazy when it suits them. This is true with ALL of Rupert Murdoch's outlets. You know...those other liberal ones like the New York Post.

It’s akin to the kids in the back of the car. One brother taunts the other one when the parents aren’t looking for about 4 hours. The other brother finally says, “F* YOU! Stop it!” and the taunter says, “Wow…you are such an overreacting crybaby.” It’s not honest.



Err...I don’t listen to it, but Air America is still…well…on the air. Bachelor's degree in Journalism? Really?



Porn is popular...it's the largest entertainment industry in the country. It makes more money than all popular forms of entertainment combined. Pork Rinds are popular. Truck Nutz are popular. Tila Tequila is popular. Las Vegas is popular. Dan Watkins is popular. Sex and the City. Daytime Soaps. (Wait for it…waiiiiiit…...) Hell, Hitler was popular. Ummm...I don't see how popularity is any measure of quality or integrity. Popular just means some people like it...



Oh and when someone disagrees with GOP, they kindly examine the information and thank them. Please...this isn't an argument. No one likes to be disagreed with. When people disagree with the GOP, they get called names and their spouses get outed as CIA operatives. I'll tell you what liberals do, they start shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. See...these shows don't even pretend to be news shows. They are PARODY which is what Bill O and Rush are as well. Not my fault the GOP has no sense of humor.

Oh, and I am not trying to silence FoxNews. I just want them to report the stories with some depth rather than being content skimming the surface and peddling in innuendo.



Oh you are SO right here. Just out of curiosity, can you tell me how much of NPR's funding comes from government sources? Use that incisive journalistic mind of yours. I want you to look that up and post here either dollar amounts or percentages or both if you can. I am just too tired to look it up. The information is out there.



Yeah, but here's the thing about that. People call in to NPR shows and diverse viewpoints are heard. If you have ever listened to the Diane Rehm show, though her own viewpoints are liberal, the columnists she has on her Friday News Roundup are just incredibly smart people that can really talk about the issues without descending into name calling. They are from all stripes of the political spectrum and Diane doesn’t allow them to stray into slime peddling. Say what you want about her, but she demands that people cite their sources and stay on task.


Yeah, because Al Sharpton is a real Democratic icon. And Tom Daschle…err…he’s not in the Senate anymore. Oh and I think Al Gore might be a little popular and is changing the world. Okay…wait…what is your point again? Oh that’s right…the popularity contest. I forgot how much that means to you.



Okay...I know you are a bit older, but a "dis" is when you say something like, "Your are fat (not 'phat')" or "Your car is a rustbucket"...a dis is usually something grounded in fact that you use to “disrespect”. Saying “President Bush really screwed up the post invasion of Iraq” or “Dick Cheney is fat (not ‘phat’)”…those are disses.

A representative of one of the most watched “fair and balanced” television channels in the country calling a presidential candidate a terrorist? There are other words like “slander”, “libel”, “lie”, “propaganda”…you know…things like that. Oy…if only there were any chance of this getting through to you, Troy. Any chance at all.



Was this a mail in degree? Send five box tops in and get a free degree? Then again, my mother has a degree in journalism too and she has no CLUE what is going on in the world of politics, so I shouldn't be too surprised.

I just don't detect any flavor of journalist curiosity going on in your posts. You seem hell-bent on using all of your means protecting the GOP rather than trying to hold everyone accountable. You either either actively avoiding or simply ignorant of mountains of non-partisan evidence or options to the contrary of just about every issue we bring up. That’s why I question the sources of your info.

Again, what other news sources besides Rush and FoxNews do you frequent? I really want to know. I read Fox News about 6 times a day along with those other worthless liberal rags I check in to.

Fox news is the best and most honest -- that is a fact jack! Just watch the no-spin zone is all you need to do and vote straight republican!

Y'know Jim. You changed my mind. What a fool I've been.

I do make intelligent and persuasive arguments.

You know, Ryan...

Direct comparisons between a print media entity, and a television news entity isn't a valid comparison when trying to show how in depth the different news orgs are.

Print reporters think in terms of column inches... TV reporters think in 30 second sound spots. Most of the news stories on Fox are what the newsreader gets on the teleprompter, so they're a lot shorter than what a print publication is going to put together.

Sorry, but the coloring book that came with my J-school diploma doesn't tell me how do any real research. I just listen to the guys on Deadliest Catch to see what's going on in the world. Cost of diesel is sky high and Cap'n Phil has blood clots.

What else do we need to know right now?

Just to set the record straight...

I never compared Pravda to NY Times. Shane said the truth was usually somewhere in the middle. He was talking about journalism. I merely brought up the two "Truths" in print journalism: One newspaper here in the US, and one in the old Soviet Union.

You took the statement out of context and cried foul where none existed. Seems like that happens in politics a lot.

I also, never said the O'Reilly and Limbaugh (or even Hannity, Colmes, Matthews, Scarborough et al) are journalists.

They are commentators. O'Reilly refers often to himself as "humble correspondent" or "a commentator". Neither O'Reilly or Rush refer to themselves as journalists in a serious fashion. Limbaugh claims to be many things... but he makes a clear distinction that he is NOT a journalist.

Those shows are not journalism. They are commentary on the news. Different rules apply to commentary vs journalism.

Over on NPR, Diane Rehm and Fresh Air are commentary or current event discussions. All Things Considered and Morning Edition are News, with some commentary added. There will be a difference in how I listen to All things... vs how I listen and react to Diane Rehm. I do actually enjoy Fresh Air as long as the host stays off the politics. Diane, I can only take in small doses due to her liberal bias.



I've got to take exception with this... I went back at watched the clip.
I even got it from The Nation, to be sure to get the full liberal treatment of it.


That was the opening line for her piece on the body language of both the Obama "pound" (I actually smirked at the pat on Michelle's butt that B snuck in there) -- and some body language of a Chest Bump between GWB and a graduating military cadet.

Terrorist and Obama were never used in the same sentence. There wasn't even a pic of the Obamas up at the time.

IMO... she's obviously talking about a gesture. I didn't hear her say "Obama is a -you-know-what!" There's a big difference between saying "your car is a junker" and saying: "Luxury sedan, sport coupe, rust-bucket... cars can be called many things."

Also, there's a cut after her statement... looks like, but I can't be sure since I'm not watching actual source video here, that there was a commercial break between the statement I quoted above, and any reference to the Obama's.

This was not a direct name calling episode. Instead it's a case