Burnt Orange Report

Glad to hear it, Kerry in Texas, leaves the battleground states like say, Pennsylvania for the President. How come Kerry is wriiting op-ed column for the Toronto Star? Can't get his message out stateside so he goes to Canada. See CANADAFREEPRESS.COM for story.

At least Kerry knows where Canada is. Can't say the same for your guy. Kerry is interested in fostering national relations as opposed to rationale of "you're with us or agin' us". Spare us the absurd commentary--it is a positive thing that he is already building goodwill around the globe, staring with Canada (that would be our neighbor to the North, BTW). Kerry can certainly find Vietnam on a map. Again, can't say the same thing for your chickenhawk candidate.

Byron,

That Kerry would raise the specter of a "deal" to keep oil prices low for election day is utterly appalling. Even Woodward, from whom the charge supposedly came, denies that there was any "deal." In fact, the Saudi Ambassador claims that both Clinton and Carter made requests for the Saudis to keep oil prices low for election day. From CNN:

"The charge that Saudi Arabia made a secret pact with President Bush to lower gasoline prices in time to help him in the November presidential election was denied Monday by the White House, the Saudi ambassador to the United States -- and even by journalist Bob Woodward, who raised the specter of such a quid pro quo in a book released Monday.

"I don't say there's a secret deal or any collaboration on this," Woodward told CNN's "Larry King Live" Monday. "What I say in the book is that the Saudis ... hoped to keep oil prices low during the period before the election, because of its impact on the economy. That's what I say."

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who appeared on the program with Woodward, said his characterization of Saudi policy was "accurate."

"We hoped that the oil prices will stay low, because that's good for America's economy, but more important, it's good for our economy and the international economy," he said. "This is nothing unusual. President Clinton asked us to keep the prices down in the year 2000. In fact, I can go back to 1979, President Carter asked us to keep the prices down to avoid the malaise."

Kerry owes Bush an apology for levying this false accusation, but I won't be holding my breath. The man is apparently quite shameless.

I went to Houston yesterday and drove in Kerry's motorcade all day long. I saw him at speak at U of H, drove to the other events, and met him that night before he left at the airport. Watching a day in the life of a presidential candidate is amazing. It is unbelievable how long and stressful their days are, even when there are still 5 months until the election. Although there were a few Bush nuts that tried to protest the speech at U of H everything went well all day, and at the end John Kerry spent 30 minutes meeting all the people that had helped with the motorcade. Although I didn't vote for him in the primary, I am so excited to vote for him in November. He is truly an outstanding man.

Shameless? Guess which President following 9-11 allowed the only airborn civilian aircraft in the country to carry Osama Ben Laden's family and other Saudis to exit the country without any questioning? This Prez places his contacts with the House of Saud on a higher level than getting to the bottom of what happened on 9-11. During some of the early investigations, the White House released certain documents but redacted portions that proved embarassing to his Crown Prince friends. Any man that goes to such lengths to aid his friends who support terrorist-inspiring madrassas, at the expense of American victims of terrorism is shameless.

Owen, I think you're letting the point get lost in the spin here. Take a closer look:

"What I say in the book is that the Saudis ... hoped to keep oil prices low during the period before the election, because of its impact on the economy. That's what I say."

The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who appeared on the program with Woodward, said his characterization of Saudi policy was "accurate."

Regardless of whether there was any kind of explicit "deal" between Bush and the Saudis, Woodward and Prince Bandar are both claiming the Saudis are hoping to time oil price changes in a way that would clearly help the incumbent (Bush) in this year's election. That's still inappropriate in my book, especially given the special treatment of the Saudis by Bush (as WhoMe just pointed out).

Kerry may have gone beyond the evidence with his talk of a "deal," but his point is still well taken. If gas prices suddenly drop this fall, you can bet it's due to Saudi manipulation, not Bush's masterful handling of the economy.

"This is nothing unusual. President Clinton asked us to keep the prices down in the year 2000. In fact, I can go back to 1979, President Carter asked us to keep the prices down to avoid the malaise."

I'd expect any U.S. President (even Bush) to try to jawbone the Saudis into keeping oil prices low, and it certainly shouldn't surprise anyone to find that such requests tend to be more frequent and insistent when a Presidential election is approaching. Prince Bandar seems to be "spinning" this by only mentioning Democratic Presidents' requests toward the ends of their respective administrations, but he didn't say there were no other requests, nor that Clinton or Carter asked the Saudis to time oil prices with the election in mind. Nor is there any evidence the Saudis have ever tried to do so before. (In fact, in Carter's case, oil prices actually hurt his re-election bid, though with the hostages in Iran I doubt it would have made any difference.)

Mathwiz,

Regardless of whether there was any kind of explicit "deal" between Bush and the Saudis, Woodward and Prince Bandar are both claiming the Saudis are hoping to time oil price changes in a way that would clearly help the incumbent (Bush) in this year's election. That's still inappropriate in my book, especially given the special treatment of the Saudis by Bush (as WhoMe just pointed out).

But...

1) It doesn't have squat to do with Bush.

2) As the Saudis point out, similar things were done with Carter and Clinton.

3) There's no serious evidence that the Saudis are doing this to help Bush. They could just as easily be trying to keep OPEC from becoming more of an election issue, without caring one whit about Bush. In fact, that's far more likely, isn't it?

Kerry may have gone beyond the evidence with his talk of a "deal," but his point is still well taken.

His 'point' was obviously to slander Bush. Otherwise he wouldn't have mentioned a 'deal' that Woodward never even spoke of.

Prince Bandar seems to be "spinning" this by only mentioning Democratic Presidents' requests toward the ends of their respective administrations, but he didn't say there were no other requests, nor that Clinton or Carter asked the Saudis to time oil prices with the election in mind.

So? How is this a scandal for Bush, or evidence that the Saudis are intentionally trying to help Bush? From my vantage, you've got nothing.

WhoMe?

Shameless? Guess which President following 9-11 allowed the only airborn civilian aircraft in the country to carry Osama Ben Laden's family and other Saudis to exit the country without any questioning?

That you would even bring this up shows how absurd and unreasonable you are. Any questions you might have about this have already been answered by Snopes.com. Suffice to say that the FBI did question some of them, although it didn't interrogate many because there was no reason to believe that they had any useful information. In fact, it was the FBI who set the whole thing up out of fears for their safety.

Oh, and Byron? Please don't let BOR become the Democratic Underground. With comments like this, it's coming to that.

Owen,

The very website you cite for your position equivocates on the issue of the Ben Laden's leaving this country. Besides, "Snopes" is hardly an authority.

What it boils down to is, "The Truth really hurts." The fact is Bush is in bed with those that brought the world fundamentalist madrasses and that really does not play well in Peioria.