The Oil Office.

Ralph Nader likes to say that George W. Bush is "a wholly owned subsidiary of the oil industry." And with Bush's pick of fellow oil man Dick Cheney as his running mate, Nader's comment seems right on target.

This month, we examine two energy corporations that may play a prominent role in any Bush-Cheney Administration.

The first is Halliburton, which Cheney himself ran from 1995 to just a few days before his (self) selection.

And the second is Enron, the natural gas company that is the single biggest contributor to the Bush campaign.

These stories paint a picture of how U.S. multinational corporations use their influence over Washington policy to get what they want: which is less regulation, and more handouts. And when they operate abroad, they work in cahoots with foreign governments that are not serving their own people but are instead--often under the influence of the World Bank--serving the interests of these companies. Whether it's Enron in India or Halliburton in Bolivia, privatization has brought deprivation.

Both Enron and Halliburton have been involved in alleged human rights abuses and environmental destruction, as well. These are not the kinds of characters that should have ready access to the White House.

But Bush and Cheney are not the only candidates with oily hands. Al Gore has strong ties to Occidental Petroleum, which has been involved in the displacement of indigenous people in Colombia.

This year, whether a Democrat or a Republican wins, the oil companies will have an in at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

And yet, corporations do not need such obvious ties to get their way in Washington. Typically, just by greasing the skids with campaign contributions and gearing up their lobbying machinery, oil companies and other big businesses are able to prevail. It's not necessary to have former CEOs occupying the top spots. That's a little blatant.

Or at least it used to be.

Peace has come to Korea at last, and everyone is celebrating--except the generals at the Pentagon. Reporter Bill Mesler tells us why in his article this month.

In reading it, I was struck by a couple of things.

First, the way the Pentagon prays not for peace but, at the very least, for simmering conflict.

And second, the way the Administration is able to put a damper on good news. As Mesler points out, the June peace mission by the two Kims was heralded the world over as huge news, tantamount to the fall of the Berlin Wall. But since it didn't fit the needs of U.S. military and foreign policy planners, the Clinton Administration issued only the most tepid responses.

For a change, the United States was not running the show or writing the script. The leaders of Korea were taking matters into their own hands and racing together not toward war but toward reconciliation and, possibly, reunification.

How dare they!

In Washington, there was none of the relief, even exuberance, that you should have expected from the vanishing of a nuclear flashpoint, especially in a place where 54,000 Americans lost their lives. There were no champagne bottles popping, no high fives all around. Instead, Washington treated it as a thorny problem.

That's messed up.