Editors' Note: We were so overwhelmed by the increase in gas price coverage on moronic local news shows [Actually, that was the CBS Evening News – Ed.] from an average of 2.59 minutes per show last year to a mind-numbing 4.25 minutes this week that we almost neglected this dispatch about an energy crisis on Zontar, a planet in the far-off Remulac system which bears an increasingly distant resemblance to our own.

GAS PRICE RISE
MAY HELP GOP

By Billy Sol Estes
Oil and Gas Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The recent rise in the price of gas – reaching over $4.00 per gallon in critical states like Florida and California – may doom the Democrats' chances to hold on to the White House this fall, party officials tell the Spy.

Already former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has called on Congress to lower the price of gas by repealing President Gore's signature $1-a-barrel carbon tax.

"With oil trading over $80 a barrel, it is time for the Democrat Party to admit that their so-called energy policy is bankrupting average Americans like you and me," Bush told a friendly audience at Houston's Petroleum Club.

Miss Junie Jo Prewitt told the Spy that she had to sell her outer garments and shoes to afford high-priced gas.

The carbon tax, enacted during the first year of President Gore's second term, is widely seen as the principal reason for the Democratic loss of the House of Representatives in the 2006 mid-term elections and the reduction of their Senate majority to a bare 51 seats.

President Gore has continued to argue, as recently as last night's 3,000-word entry posted on his White House Blog, that the carbon tax has helped combat global warming, reduce domestic consumption and fund carbon-reduction projects including massive Great Plains wind farms and a slew of mass transit programs which are only now beginning to bear fruit.

The increase in oil prices is blamed on a number of factors, including the continuing UN boycott of Sudanese oil, enforced by a U.S.-led naval blockade in the Red Sea, unrest in the Niger Delta and the perpetually troubled Southern Iraq oil belt, centered around Basra.

The Gore Administration had sought to keep aging Iraqi supremo Saddam Hussein in check by funneling covert assistance to rebel Shi'ite forces operating around Basra. Although this strategy is widely seen as successfully blunting Hussein's expansionist urges, it has contributed to unrest in the region, which translates into lower oil production levels.

However, with wall-to-wall coverage on television of grumpy drivers pumping $4 gas into their tanks, Vice President Bill Richardson, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is caught between supporting a policy he had endorsed and an electorate that has something new to gripe about now that it longer worries about paying for health insurance.

Vice President Richardson has loyally made the rounds of television shows, enduring a long interview with an increasingly addled 60 Minutes anchor Dan Rather, 87.  In response to a lengthy anecdote from Rather about burning dead armadillos to keep warm during his Texas youth, Richardson asked the audience to keep in mind the benefits of the Gore Administration's carbon tax.

"Imagine what life would be like if we didn't have the carbon tax. Global warming would threaten life on earth as we know it, from polar bears in the Arctic to flooded farmers in Iowa. Unchecked U.S. consumption could push oil prices beyond $120 to $130 a barrel," a prospect that Rather termed "erdicilous."

Appearing on the The View with Katie Couric, Senate Majority Whip Hillary Clinton loyally defended the carbon tax. "Just think about the $100 billion we've invested in alternative energy sources and mass transit. Without that investment, we'd be at the mercy of foreign oil barons."

The Democrats hope that cutting the ribbons on a series of new projects between now and Election Day will remind voters of the benefits of the $1-a-gallon tax. They point to the Washington Metro's long-delayed Dulles Airport extension, the opening of New York's Moynihan Station after two decades of dithering and Los Angeles Metro's brand new Yellow Line, which provides for the first time an alternative to the city's clogged freeways running from LA International Airport through Santa Monica to downtown.

But all signs point to a Republican effort to make a carbon tax rollback the hallmark of their fall campaign. "What else do they have? After eight years of peace and prosperity, all they offer is a returned to the failed policies of a previous century," said rising Democratic star Sen. Barack Obama (D – Illinois).

Privately, GOP strategists say that it's not enough to campaign against the carbon tax; they have to come up with an energy policy of their own.

Two-time loser Sen. George W. Bush (R – Texas), whose colorful antics and mangled syntax have made him a favorite with the GOP faithful, quipped on last night's Schlox News's signature prime-time gabfest, Wide Open with Jenna Jameson, "you bet the price of energy is on my mind these days."

Grabbing Jenna's thigh in a playful squeeze, Sen. Bush explained: "These days, energy is costing me $100 a gram."