ORANGE BANDAR ALERT
The price of oil topped 53 bucks for part of today. While not the highest ever adjusting for inflation, it's still pretty high. A number of explanations are cited in the AP account...
Therefore, I think it's high time to move the United States "Bandar Alert Level" up to "Orange". Bandar is, of course, Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador who is much more deserving of that Gary Aldrich book title than anyone associated with Clinton. He's also the guy who, according to Bob Woodward's 2004 book on the Iraq war Plan of Attack, made an agreement with Bush involving lowering oil prices in the run-up to the 2004 election. It's the Guitar Center Theory: if you have your prices especially high right before the big sale, then the sale will appear all the larger to the consumers. Naturally, when the story broke everyone involved denied the thing. But of course, things like this aren't meant to be found out.
Anyway, regardless of whether it's true or not, let's all keep our eyes peeled. Because even if a deal was made and they carry it out, middle America might not appreciate the gravity of this; they'll say "hey, oil prices are dropping, it must be because of our administration", and they'll go on and vote for Bush anyway.
It's a familiar calculation for the administration: politicize national security policy, take the outrage from some, but believe that the result is a net gain. This calculation could arise in two other areas in the coming weeks:
1) Terror alerts. They know that each alert gives Bush a slight bump in his approval ratings, so they're more than happy to issue a blanket warning with no direct basis in reality for that purpose. And they're doing that right now!
2) If Osama is caught. If he gets caught in the last week of October, plenty of people will voice their outrage about the timing, and rightly say "why didn't you catch him all the way back in late 2001?" Their idea is to then pin their opponents by saying that if they had their way, we wouldn't have caught him at all, and you know where that progression goes. They figure that just enough Americans will say that despite the politicized timing, the capture of bin Laden is a net positive.
We'll see what happens.
The price of oil topped 53 bucks for part of today. While not the highest ever adjusting for inflation, it's still pretty high. A number of explanations are cited in the AP account...
Oil prices reached $53 a barrel on Thursday, and have advanced more than 20 percent in a month, in large part because output in the Gulf of Mexico was hobbled by a hurricane and has not been restored as quickly as expected.Okay, we're a little under a month from election day, and Bush has slipped into a tie with Kerry, and is even a couple percentage points behind in some polls.
The possibility of violence and a labor strike in oil-rich Nigeria has also kept oil traders on edge, and underlying it all is global unease about the fact that the world's available supply cushion is too thin to make up for any large, prolonged loss of output.
Light crude for November delivery climbed 65 cents to settle at a new high of $52.67 per barrel Thursday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, retreating from a high of $53 set earlier in the day. In London, Brent crude for November delivery soared 91 cents to close at $48.90 per barrel.
Therefore, I think it's high time to move the United States "Bandar Alert Level" up to "Orange". Bandar is, of course, Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador who is much more deserving of that Gary Aldrich book title than anyone associated with Clinton. He's also the guy who, according to Bob Woodward's 2004 book on the Iraq war Plan of Attack, made an agreement with Bush involving lowering oil prices in the run-up to the 2004 election. It's the Guitar Center Theory: if you have your prices especially high right before the big sale, then the sale will appear all the larger to the consumers. Naturally, when the story broke everyone involved denied the thing. But of course, things like this aren't meant to be found out.
Anyway, regardless of whether it's true or not, let's all keep our eyes peeled. Because even if a deal was made and they carry it out, middle America might not appreciate the gravity of this; they'll say "hey, oil prices are dropping, it must be because of our administration", and they'll go on and vote for Bush anyway.
It's a familiar calculation for the administration: politicize national security policy, take the outrage from some, but believe that the result is a net gain. This calculation could arise in two other areas in the coming weeks:
1) Terror alerts. They know that each alert gives Bush a slight bump in his approval ratings, so they're more than happy to issue a blanket warning with no direct basis in reality for that purpose. And they're doing that right now!
2) If Osama is caught. If he gets caught in the last week of October, plenty of people will voice their outrage about the timing, and rightly say "why didn't you catch him all the way back in late 2001?" Their idea is to then pin their opponents by saying that if they had their way, we wouldn't have caught him at all, and you know where that progression goes. They figure that just enough Americans will say that despite the politicized timing, the capture of bin Laden is a net positive.
We'll see what happens.
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