I honestly believe that in the wake of 9/11, this country would have followed a good leader down any path they felt was right. Think about it. Most Democrats voted for war against Iraq, even though now most are against Iraq.
I can almost guarantee that if we had a leader who said we needed a "Manhattan" scale project to get our country off the oil in 10 years, every last man, woman, and child would have been 100% behind it. We could have rammed legislation through congress to mandate increasing CAFE requirements to reach 75 mpg within 10 years, mandate use of 50% or more corn or sugar based alcohol in our gas, provided tax incentives for consumers and manufacturers of hybrids and fuel cells, etc. That would have radically altered the landscape in this country.
Then our President could have goen to the U.N., NATO, and Europe and said, we don't need your help to fight our wars. We need your help on our "Manhattan" project to marginalize oil consumption across the world. They could have worked that into a grand, global scale new Kyoto accord, focused on getting the world off the oil, with the good side effect of environmental protection. It would have worked and as much as I despise Gore, he could have and probably would have done that job, albeit, maybe not as radically as I would have liked.
But this country doesn't have a good leader like that. |
