Demagogue

Even though foreign policy is playing a significant role in driving the debate of Election 2006, a topic that frames much of that foreign policy has received virtually no attention this fall. In this article, John Hughes of the Christian Science Monitor writes:

... the greatest irony of all in this year's election campaign has been the scant attention given to the issue that will have the greatest effect, both domestic and foreign, on most Americans for the next half century. This is their vulnerability to imported energy, notably oil.

A blue-ribbon Council on Foreign Relations task force of experts, chaired by former defense and energy secretary James Schlesinger, declared this month that Americans must slow and eventually reverse their consumption of petroleum products.

... The challenge in the next several decades, Mr. Schlesinger said, is to manage the consequences of "unavoidable dependence on oil and gas," while simultaneously beginning the "transition to an economy that relies less on petroleum." The report warns: "The longer the delay, the greater will be the subsequent trauma."

Neglect of this issue by some of the best minds in this year's political debate seems likely only to exacerbate the ultimate trauma.