Bush has post-oil-peak plan

In reported confidential remarks to supporters, Bush seems to accept reality of the oil peak and projects certitude that along with expansion of nuclear, we can drill our way past it

So it really is not clear to me that President Bush even understood the oil peak concept when a concerned supporter asked him about it, since by definition, we cannot exceed peak oil by drilling and pumping more. But here is the stunning moment journalist and author Ron Suskind reveals in Without a Doubt, an article published today in the New York Times Magazine (emphasis added to oil remarks):

"I'm going to be real positive, while I keep my foot on John Kerry's throat", George W. Bush said last month at a confidential luncheon a block away from the White House with a hundred or so of his most ardent, longtime supporters, the so-called R.N.C. Regents. This was a high-rolling crowd -- at one time or another, they had all given large contributions to Bush or the Republican National Committee. Bush had known many of them for years, and a number of them had visited him at the ranch. It was a long way from Poplar Bluff.

The Bush these supporters heard was a triumphal Bush, actively beginning to plan his second term. It is a second term, should it come to pass, that will alter American life in many ways, if predictions that Bush voiced at the luncheon come true.

He said emphatically that he expects the Republicans will gain seats to expand their control of the House and the Senate. According to notes provided to me, and according to several guests at the lunch who agreed to speak about what they heard, he said that "Osama bin Laden would like to overthrow the Saudis ... then we're in trouble. Because they have a weapon. They have the oil".

He said that there will be an opportunity to appoint a Supreme Court justice shortly after his inauguration, and perhaps three more high-court vacancies during his second term.

"Won't that be amazing"? said Peter Stent, a rancher and conservationist who attended the luncheon. "Can you imagine? Four appointments"!

After his remarks, Bush opened it up for questions, and someone asked what he's going to do about energy policy with worldwide oil reserves predicted to peak.

BUSH SAID: "I'm going to push nuclear energy, drilling in Alaska and clean coal. Some nuclear-fusion technologies are interesting". He mentions energy from "processing corn".

"I'm going to bring all this up in the debate, and I'm going to push it", he said, and then tried out a line. "Do you realize that ANWR [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge] is the size of South Carolina, and where we want to drill is the size of the Columbia airport"?

The questions came from many directions -- respectful, but clearly reality-based. About the deficits, he said he'd "spend whatever it takes to protect our kids in Iraq", that "homeland security cost more than I originally thought."

In response to a question, he talked about diversity, saying that "hands down", he has the most diverse senior staff in terms of both gender and race. He recalled a meeting with Chancellor Gerhard Schroder of Germany. "You know, I'm sitting there with Schroder one day with Colin and Condi. And I'm thinking: What's Schroder thinking?! He's sitting here with two blacks and one's a woman".

But as the hour passed, Bush kept coming back to the thing most on his mind: his second term.

"I'm going to come out strong after my swearing in", Bush said, "with fundamental tax reform, tort reform, privatizing of Social Security." The victories he expects in November, he said, will give us "two years, at least, until the next midterm. We have to move quickly, because after that I'll be quacking like a duck".

Many of these exchanges are truly freightening. I now fear a second Bush term more than ever. We won't recognize our country, or our world if the chimperor is allowed four more years of blind destruction while his gut gives him surety that he is doing the right thing. Let's hope he's quacking inside a month. The whole article is well worth the read.