On the way to this studio I had to stop and get gas.
Gas. I'm really stressed right now.
I mean this is America. Our Declaration of Independence says that we have certain unalienable rights that include Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
It's hard to pursue happiness when you're stressed out.
I'm not just stressed about the price of gas in Columbus Ohio.
In January and again in May our President personally asked the folks over in Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to help offset our record gas prices.
George Bush went directly to the King of Saudi Arabia and asked him to pump more oil.
The King blew our President off. Told him, hey man we'll just let the market drive the price of oil.
and from what they tell us, this from one of our greatest allies in the Middle East.
This isn't the first time our ally kicked us in the groin
In 1973 when Egyptian and Syrian forces attacked Israeli positions in the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights our Pentagon decided to start an airlift to help out Israel to counter Soviet support of Egypt and Syria.
King Faisal, of Saudi Arabia cut off his country's oil exports to the US - the rest of OPEC followed suit. The OPEC oil ministers agreed to use oil as a "weapon" to punish the West for it's support of Israel in what came to be know as the Yom Kippur War.
In this age of terrorism no one in OPEC would ever say the word "weapon" out loud but at the gas pump this morning it felt like 1973 all over again.
Is it them, or is the fox in the hen house? Is the high price of gas just a big manipulation to get us to turn Big Oil loose in the Artic Circle? Either way the average working person is the loser in the equation.
Here's what I propose - We, that we being "us" the people of America, draft a new Declaration of Independence - A Declaration of Energy Independence that states a plan to free us from our dependence on foreign energy with a real date that we are going to be free by. We give it to our elected leaders in Washington and tell them "make this the law" or come next election a big part of your new gig will be asking "do you want fries with that?"
You know, Actually in response to the 1973 oil crisis, then President, Richard Nixon proposed "Project Independence" - His plan was going to insure that by the end of the decade, by 1980, Americans wouldn't have to rely on any source of energy that wasn't American.
A little deal called Watergate sort of got in way of that one
I never thought I'd ever say this let's go dig Nixon's plan out, dust it off, and hand it to Congress.
If we really want to get back to our pursuit of happiness we have to have our Independence and cheap gas.