How Low (and High) Can You Go?

The American Research Group reports that Bush’s approval rating has hit an all time low of 19%, with 77% disapproving.  How can any Republican candidate dig out of such a deep hole?

Meanwhile, oil has been flirting with $100 a barrel.  Every time oil prices hit new highs, Bookworm points out that, adjusting for inflation, a quarter of a century ago the prices were slightly higher.  Is this really what we have come to, that our defense is that if we adjust for inflation and go back far enough in time we can prove things are only the second worst they have ever been?  To even think like this strikes me as defeatist.

Since the energy crisis of the 1970s, we’ve had Democrat presidents and Republican presidents, Democrat Congresses and Republican Congresses in about every possible combination, and our dependence on foreign oil (and the price of that oil) has only gotten worse.   I’ve expressed my own idea that we need to attack the matter on all fronts with nothing (not nuclear, not off-shore drilling, not new dams, not solar, not geothermal, not wind, not oil shale, not coal, not ethanol, not electric cars, not anything) off limits.  But that does not seem to be a politically viable solution.  Does anyone have any ideas on politically realistic solutions to our energy problems?