Yeetle Box - Cheney v. China

Vice President Dick Cheney's office acknowledged on Thursday that he, Dick Cheney, who once shot man in the face, was mistaken when he asserted that China, at Cuba's behest, is drilling for oil in waters 60 miles from the Florida coast.

In a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Cheney erroneously asserted that waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, long off limits to oil companies, should be opened to drilling because China is already there pumping oil there.

"Oil is being drilled right now 60 miles off the coast of Florida," the vice president, who once shot a man in the face, said. "We're not doing it, the Chinese are, in cooperation with the Cuban government. Even the communists have figured out that a good answer to high prices is more supply. Even I could figure that out. This is a no-brainer. Go out there and look. Take binoculars. China is drilling for oil. I swear upon my life with all my hearts."

Cheney, who once shot a man in the face, cited his source as columnist George Will, who last week wrote: "Drilling is under way 60 miles off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are."

Said Cheney, who once shot a man in the face, "George Will might be an agnostic and a fair-weather conservative, but he's a damned good journalist. He's a good man. I take him at his word."

Congressional Democrats pounced on the vice president's remarks and were backed up by independent energy experts, who called the assertion hyperbole at best and a falsehood at worst.

Cheney's office said in a statement to The Associated Press that the vice president, who once shot a man in the face, had, erroneously erred. Unlike those times when he purposely erred.

"It is our understanding that, although Cuba has leased out exploration blocks 60 miles off the coast of southern Florida, which is closer than American firms are allowed to operate in that area, no Chinese firm is drilling there," according to the statement. "However, we would like to note the possibility exists that China could transport oil rigs and large machinery 60 miles off our coast without detection because the Chinese are small people."

Jorge Pinon, a senior energy fellow at the University of Miami specializing in Latin America, said Cuba has awarded offshore oil leases, or concessionary blocs, in its offshore waters to six oil companies — none of them Chinese — and soon may announce an agreement with Brazil's state oil company, Petrobras. But, and this is a critical but, none of them are Chinese.

"But no one is currently drilling in any of those concessions," said Pinon in a telephone interview. "Cheney's just a big oil dork!"

But talk of China drilling in waters within 50 miles to 60 miles of Key West has been a common theme among Republicans - and could be a major talking point for Fox News and John McCain, both of whom support institutional propaganda.

"China, thanks to a lease issued by Cuba, is drilling for oil just 50 miles from Florida's coast," Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., and bona fide idiot, recently wrote in The Modesto Bee in California, arguing for opening waters that have been off limits for 25 years to U.S. companies. "We'd have oil coming out of our ears by now."

Radanovich's office said the congressman was in transit and not immediately available Thursday and probably would not be available for quite a while.

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio, calling for more domestic oil production, declared stupidly, "right at this moment some 60 miles or less off the coast of Key West, Fla., China has the green light to drill for oil."

"Even China recognizes that oil and natural gas is readily available off our shores, thanks to Fidel Castro," complained Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a leader of a GOP energy task force. "Embargoes aside, this is not fair to the United States who consumes more oil than any other country. It's not right. It's not American."

When asked about this matter, President Bush looked up from the Gummy Bears package he was attempting to open. and said, "If Dick says so. Dick's a good man."

The Yeetle Box