ustxtxb_obs_1999_12_10_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

Qatar, Nigeria, and Indonesia.” A half-dozen slides take us through lines at gas stations, OPEC’s collapse, and increased American production and conservation efforts insulation of houses and the fifty-five mile-per-hour speed limit that got us all out of the service station lines that helped make Jimmy Carter a oneterm president. Viewers are warned that Americans don’t control their own “oil destiny…. Much of the oil we use today comes from the world’s most unstable and militarily vulnerable areas … controlled by nations who regularly declare their hatred for the United States. Each day, we live with their hands on our gas pumps.” As the musical score becomes more upbeat almost triumphalist it is pointed out that there is domestic oil. Much of it is “in envi ronmentally sensitive areas, like offshore, or in the frozen wilds of Alaska, or the rugged Rocky Mountains. … And we must find it!” President George H.. W. Bush’s success in the oilfields of the Permian Basin earned him his spot on the wall of fame in the museum’s the board room.. Governor George W. Bush didn’t fare so well in the oil bidness, where he actually lost a couple million. There’s space for additional portraits; W. probably won’t be hanging there. + “Don’t I Look Presidential?” en he’s not flogging his autobiography or playing part-time pro wrestler, Jesse Ven tura is the incumbent Governor of Minnesota. One of his other current occupations is Not-Running-For-President, which is the two-step he’s been dancing with the media for several months. Ventura initially promised Minnesota voters he would serve weeks has enjoyed publicly toying with the idea that maybe he’ll change his mind. In August, he told C-SPAN if the Reform Party nominated him and put him on the ballot, “There’s not a lot I could do about it, is there?” More recently, according to The New Republic, he said would s .,,, consider a run with the “blessing” of Minnesota voters, although it’s not exactly clear how he might receive that ordination. Ventura hasn’t had a terribly good rep, however, with the orthodox Reformists ever since he dissed organized religion, advocated legalized prostitution, and defended the Tailhook assailants in the pages of Playboy. There he also described how to win all the marbles: wait until George W. Bush and Al Gore shoot it out and repel the voters, then “enter the race three months before the election and take the whole thing.” \(Playboy is reportedly sitting on additional in terview material for next year, so Jesse may have more publicly promoted the candidacy of tycoon Donald Trump, and Party insiders suspect him of doing so on George W. Bush’s behalf, to derail the candidacy of GOP-switcher Patrick Buchanan. We suspect the voters would rather see a caged celebrity death-match between 4 Buchanan and Ventura himself, but who’s to say Trump and oh, Arianna Huffington, can’t act as seconds on a tag-team donnybrook in the center ring of the Metrodome? It all goes to show that the unconventional candi date has steadily, month by month, become a Politician but definitely \(see most distinguished presidential trousseau. + DECEMBER 10, 1999 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7