In his State of the Union address, Bush declared America addicted to oil.

In his State of the Union address, Bush declared America addicted to oil. The word "addicted," of course, is morally loaded, implying an unhealthy and irrational dependence. But since oil provides the cheapest and most efficient way to power automobiles, our use of it is natural and sensible. Bush isn't proposing any far-reaching proposals to deal with this newly diagnosed condition. His new Advanced Energy Initiative, which is charged with figuring out how to make fuel from wood chips, is redolent of all the past, failed federal initiatives to find alternatives to oil and to gas-powered cars. Who can forget the glories of President Nixon's Project Independence? Or Carter's Synthetic Fuels Corporation? As for the geostrategic rationale for Bush's policy, it too is dubious. The top oil exporters to the U.S. are our nonthreatening neighbors, Canada and Mexico. This is why Bush singled out Mideast oil. Assuming he's fine with oil from U.S. allies Kuwait and Iraq, that leaves half-ally Saudi Arabia as a disfavored exporter. But whether we buy its oil or not, the kingdom is going to sell massive amounts of it on the world market. One theory holds that declining oil prices driven by reduced U.S. consumption will undercut undemocratic governments in the Middle East, but these governments proved durable even when prices plummeted in the mid-1980s, and some of them aren't oil states (Syria, Egypt, the Palestinian Authority). Bush's addiction line is a rhetorical feint to the center, leading nowhere.