A plausible gas-price theory
Regarding “Lower pump prices fuel political conspiracy theories,” Nov. 6:
Thirty percent of those polled, you report, suspect that there were phone calls from the White House to oil company headquarters some months back, in which administration officials asked that gasoline prices be eased before the election.
White House Press Secretary Tony Snow posed a question: If the president could control gas prices, “why on Earth did we raise them to $3.50 before?”
They probably didn’t, but neither would President Bush have been unhappy to see ExxonMobil Corp. rake in a $10.5-billion profit last quarter or ChevronTexaco Corp. take home $5 billion, as he would have known that a chunk of that money would be spent on political contributions to keep his party in office.
The timing of the price reductions is deemed a conspiracy theory, as no e-mails or phone records have been divulged. Meanwhile, though, the picture’s plenty clear to a number of us: The oil industry benefits hugely from Bush’s policies, so it is happy to do whatever it takes to keep his party in power, including lowering its prices for a while.
Mike Diehl
Glendale
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Now that voters have elected Democratic majorities in Congress, will gas prices increase in the next four months as dramatically as they have declined in the last four months?
Will Saddam Hussein be freed by an appeals court, be granted sanctuary in a solidly blue state and tragically killed while quail hunting in Texas? Will John F. Kerry and Hillary Rodham Clinton wake up in bed together in a hotel room with Washington Times and New York Post photographers?
Wake up, Karl Rove, and wipe away that drool. You must have been dreaming. But it might not hurt to mention your dream to your friends in the oil business. Curious things have happened many times in the party of make-believe.
Carl C. Slate
Sherman Oaks
Bechtel’s Iraq experience echoes White House’s
Regarding “Bechtel calls it quits after more than 3 years in Iraq,” Nov. 3:
What a shame to bury, in the Business section, such an apt analogy to the Iraq conflict.
To the tune of $2.3 billion, Bechtel Corp. has brought its engineering might to bear upon the tattered Iraqi infrastructure (much of the damage done by “coalition” bombs).
Claiming to have completed 97 of 99 projects, the company acknowledges that vandalism and security concerns require its withdrawal -- and have made many of those projects less than fully functional.
Sadly, Bechtel’s goals and objectives -- to rebuild schools, bridges and water treatment plants -- have eerily echoed the White House’s objectives of building a democratic state.
The Bush administration’s ham-fisted cultural and social policies and imperatives -- choosing (apparently) to ignore a social structure that has been in place for more than 600 years -- have led to total social upheaval, where it’s almost always easier to tear things down and disrupt than to build things up.
This is true of both infrastructure and democracy.
Peter Little
Monrovia