Read My Lips

I hate to say I told you so (especially when being right means more suck), but... Before the State of the Union address, the 'oil addiction' line and the calls for energy independence were the most leaked/discussed aspect of the speech. Now here's the reality just one day later...

Knight-Ridder: Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally...

Oh. Out of curiousity, what parts did he mean literally?

So what did the President mean (literally)? Well-

What the president meant, they said in a conference call with reporters, was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025.

But America still would import oil from the Middle East, because that's where the greatest oil supplies are.

Well, of course! I mean it's so obvious that's what he meant.

And then there was this-

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

No doubt! No one expected the President to mean anything he said literally, they were just examples and allegories.

Like when he said "we are winning" in Iraq. That's just an example... of what the President wants to believe is happening. Or when he said his warrantless domestic spying program is "based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute", that's just an example of a weak legal argument he hopes Congress will buy.

So why then did the President say these things? Well-

Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands." The official spoke only on condition of anonymity because he feared that his remarks might get him in trouble.

Oh, he was just being dramatic, okay. PRESIDENT BUSH IS A LIAR. Dramatic like that?

Or was he going for a more subtle, method acting approach?

Ironically enough, this was a top headline today from the AP:
Bush Urges Confidence in His Leadership

Gosh, I can't imagine why Americans have lost confidence in his leadership. [*scratches head*]

[Related- Bush Says Don't Expect Oil Price Breaks (AP)]