Media Watch

Kennedy: Chavez better than Saudis

In today's Boston Herald, Joe-4-Oil Kennedy defends Venezuelan ruler who threatens to cut off oil to U.S

On a day that Hugo Chavez (shown hugging Iranian Ayatollah Khameneh’i)  is threatening to cut off the 1.5 million barrels of oil a day Venezuela supplies the US, Joe Kennedy JR. defended cozying up to the leftist strongman for some discounted oil by saying our country is reliant on worse countries including Iran and Saudi Arabia.

" Who really represents the greater threat to our American way of life-Venezuela or Saudi Arabia and the many other OPEC nations that unlike Venezuela, have never held  Democractic elections?" Kennedy asked.

Isn't that like saying we like this drug dealer better than that drug dealer because  he threatens us with death by gunshot instead of  beheading?

But for Kennedy to even pose the question " Who poses a greater threat to our way of life....", he has done us a great service and we hope his Uncle Ted and brother RFK JR. take note of the question.

Because if our political and American leaders don't realize that we are mortgaging our economic and national security to people that propagandize one day by throwing us a cargo of discounted oil or tweak open the spigot a bit and then the next day threaten a complete cut off
and roil oil prices ever higher, we are going to wake up as a very different nation.

The simple answer is to implement a war time or appollo like effort to move away from burning imported oil and gas ,so that very diplomatically we can tell OPEC to take their oil and shove it where the sun don't shine...which of course is back in the ground. That payoff means more American jobs, lower trade deficit, cleaner environment, and energy independence.

Kud0s to Delahunt and Call-Joe-4-Dirty-Oil

Kudos to Comngressman Delahunt and Joe K for putting the whole Hugo Chavez circus in the spotlight and reminding us,that if we don't all clap the Ringmaster gets very angry. Well at least Joe Kennedy Jr. is now developing wind farms even if they are in other people's back yards.  (Today's Herald story is below.)

Joe K defends Venezuelan connection

By Jay Fitzgerald, Boston Herald General Economics Reporter, Saturday, February 18, 2006

Joseph P. Kennedy II yesterday countered accusations that his Citizens Energy cozied up to a leftist strongman for oil by noting that the United States is dependent on far worse countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, for its oil needs.

Kennedy, reacting to a letter sent by House GOP leaders to the head of Citgo, the Venezuelan-owned company that donated fuel for heating-fuel programs in the United States, said at least Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was democratically elected and was helping the poor.

“If you want to connect the dots between politics and commerce, I suggest you put other oil-producing nations in the cross hairs of your investigation,” Kennedy wrote to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Subcommittee for Oversight and Investigations.

“Who really represents the greater threat to our American way of life - Venezuela or Saudi Arabia and the many other OPEC nations that, unlike Venezuela, have never held democratic elections?” Kennedy asked.

Kennedy, a former Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts, said his Citizens Energy supports Citgo’s donation of subsidized oil to fuel-assistance programs due to skyrocketing fuel costs that are burdening low-income Americans.

Larry Neal, a staff director of the energy committee, shot back to Kennedy that “with your assistance, a bellicose American hater” is meddling in U.S. energy policies.

See the Herald column here, and the MetroWest story here.