Wait a second... Do you mean to tell me that Bush hasn't turned out to be the affable, popular "reformer with results" we were promised in 2000???

Gee wi - he sure does have a great force behind his personality!  

What could anyone say with greater intelligence than George is an idiot.

Creating political goodwill.  So that's what it was all about.  I see it now.  How could I have been so blind!?

He's lost a lot of charm in eight years...

The Saudis stiffed Walker again. He no more impresses the princes of Arabia than he he does the American people. He is the lamest of lame ducks.

I don't know much about this, but I heard some intelligent sounding petroannalysts on the BBC a week or so ago, both of whom argued that at the moment, an increased supply of crude would do little to nothing to relieve the price at the pump.

Hmmm ... I guess Saudis who, for all intents and purposes own your family, aren't as pliable as slightly overweight sorority girls from the late '60s. Who'da thunk it!

I am shocked that the charming diplomacy of George W. Bush failed him on this occasion. Shocked, I tell you!

Maybe he forgot the goodwill part.  Maybe invading neighboring countries and strengthening the Shia enemy while making no attempt to progress the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace has not created enough good will among the al-Sa'ud clan?

Since most of our oil imports are from Canada and Mexico, why not negotiate with them to lower the price of crude they charge us?  Indeed, we could offer to resolve the immigration controversy favorably to Mexico in return for a deep discount on crude.

nbarry, ain't going to happen with Mexico, they rely too much of the revenues. What we can do is offer to help them with drilling technology on the huge oil field  the Ku-Maloob-Zaap in the Gulf of Mexico and at  Chicontepec with its 17 billion. Cantarell is running dry and they don't really have the tech to get it from there.

Here's an idea - why not embrace policies that reverse the decline in the value of the dollar?  You know, something like living within our means and not continuing to run up a huge debt to the bank of China.  

Nari224,

That would require reversing the Bush tax cuts so we stopped running structural deficits.  The Republicans sure as hell aren't going to do that, and the Democrats are not going to do that before an election.

4 (8?) years from now Andrew Sullivan will be writing the same sort of thing on his "power of Obama's face" theory.

Maybe Bush should have congratulated the al-Saud clan for training 15 of the 19 suicide bombers of 9/11. That might have charmed the Saudis.