Gas prices got you down? Don't despair!

Prices at the pump biting you square in your rump?

Well, turn that frown upside down.  Our presnidette has a plan.

In 2000, it was prophesied:

Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.

"I would work with our friends in OPEC to convince them to open up the spigot, to increase the supply," Mr. Bush, the presumptive Republican candidate for president, told reporters here today. "Use the capital that my administration will earn, with the Kuwaitis or the Saudis, and convince them to open up the spigot."

So we've got that going for us.  Which is nice.

I love it when President McBlunderpants elaborates.  What a wonk!

"Ours is a nation that helped Kuwait and the Saudis, and you'd think we'd have the capital necessary to convince them to increase the crude supplies," he said.

Asked why the Clinton administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Mr. Bush said: "The fundamental question is, 'Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?'"

He went on to suggest, as he did in answer to other questions, that voters should simply trust him.

"I will be," he said in answer to his own question about whether he would be a successful president. "But until I'm the president, it's going to be hard for me to verify that I think I'll be more effective."

I, personally, would hate to rush to judgment on the question of Bush's foreign policy acumen.  The guy's got almost seven months left, and a lot can happen in seven months.  Then, of course, comes the historian's mandated cooling-off period of fifty years before any assessment can be considered sober and academic.  I mean, who really knows anything, really?

But it's hard not to give George W. Bush the benefit of the doubt when you've got a plan as ironclad and as sharply articulated as this one.

I'd just like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank everybody who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 for displaying the good sense I lacked when I voted for that wanker Al Gore.  With the benefit of hindsight, it's obvious to me now the twinkling possibilities you saw in him.

Gas Tax Holiday, anyone?!