I was watching Hardball on Thursday night and Chris Matthews had on Former Commerce Secretary Don Evans. Secretary Evans is a good personal friend to President Bush and a former member of his administration. Amazingly enough during the interview, there is this exchange:
MATTHEWS: Mr. Secretary, I'm not here quoting George Clooney or "Syriana" or any kind of fireworks in the center-left of the left. I'm remembering--I have a problem, I remember what people say. Jimmy Baker, James Baker, the former secretary of state under the first Bush administration, was asked why we were fighting over in the Middle East, why were we fighting after the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein.
And he gave a very tough answer. Maybe it's a Texas answer but he gave it. He said jobs, jobs, jobs. He connected the dots. He said we're fighting in that part of the world to prevent any cutting off of our oil supply. Now the president says, we cannot rely on getting oil from unstable parts of the world. He's saying basically the same thing that Jimmy Baker was saying, oil is connected to foreign policy.
Is the president still saying we would be better of if we didn't have to stay in touch, keep this military presence in the Middle East, didn't have to keep winning wars over there to keep the oil coming? Is he saying that?
EVANS: No, Chris. What he's saying ...
MATTHEWS: He's not saying that. He's not saying what Jim Baker said, he's not saying what ...
EVANS: What he's saying--no, no, no. What he's saying is it is all about jobs, jobs, jobs, in terms of the direction of this country in the years ahead, jobs for your children, for your grandchildren. And what he's saying is we need to change courses. We cannot continue to go down the path that we're going down, because there is not enough supply of oil in the world to grow our economy or the global economy at its full potential.
If that isn't direct enough, Former Secretary Evans gives the money quote:
MATTHEWS: James A. Baker from Texas, the former secretary of state, said the first war in the Gulf was about jobs, jobs, jobs. He said that was what the war about. I'm accepting your argument right now, your statement that this call for energy independence by the president is not because we have to rely on oil from the unstable Middle East. It has to do with our needs for economic growth. Is that your bottom line?
EVANS: Chris, that is my bottom line. The world is producing oil, the Middle East, every country at its full capacity and it's very unlikely that we're going to be able to see supply in the world grow from the levels where we are right now. There's a debate about that. I'm one that falls in the camp that says it's going to be very, very hard to do that. But what I do know is China needs to continue to grow, India needs to continue to grow, America needs to continue to grow. So what that simply says is we've got to develop new forms of energy for the United States and the world.
Holy Guacamole, Batman. The line about "it's very unlikely that we're going to be able to see supply in the world grow from the levels where we are right now" is pretty much the definition of peak oil. This guy is coming out and saying that the president is concerned about the growth levels seen in world oil production. Of course, if you've been following any of the comments by Matthew Simmons or Roscoe Bartlett, this is not a shock. But for myself and the other 10 people in the country watching Hardball, it was a bit extraordinary to have a former official on a mainstream media outlet just come out and say it.
Here is a link to the transcript.