Below The Beltway

Andrew Sullivan on the joys of expensive gasoline:
$4 a gallon is the best news this country has had in a very long time. Here’s to $5. It’s the only way Americans will ever learn.
Because, you know, stupid us we all don’t see the joys of living in big cities and taking bicycles and mass transit [...]

Some Democratic Members of Congress are calling for nationalization of oil refineries in response to rising gas prices:
House Democrats responded to President’s Bush’s call for Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore drilling. This was at an on-camera press conference fed back live.
Among other things, the Democrats called for the government to own refineries so [...]

At least that’s the only conclusion that I can draw from this Rasmussen poll:
A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 29% of voters favor nationalizing the oil industry. Just 47% are opposed and 24% are not sure.
The survey found that a plurality of Democrats (37%) believe the oil industry should be nationalized. Just 32% [...]

If you want a first-hand demonstration of the idea that supply issues are only part of what is causing the price of oil to rise, then today is the perfect day for a lesson.
First, we have the announcement from the Saudi King that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would pump more oil:
Saudi Arabia will raise [...]

Ross Douthat hits the nail on the head:
Of course we should drill for oil there. And yes, McCain’s resistance to doing so is a good small-bore example of what’s wrong with his style of reformist conservatism: It deviates from right-wing orthodoxy on boutique issues that please the media (see also campaign-finance reform, tobacco legislation, etc. [...]

A major shareholder in Borders is saying the company should approach Amazon.com about a merger:
NEW YORK — William Ackerman, the billionaire hedge fund manager who is a major stakeholder in Borders Group Inc., says the bookseller should consider approaching online retailer Amazon.com Inc. about a possible acquisition.
The founder of Pershing Square Capital Management said Ann [...]

Will drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge have any real impact on the price of oil and gas ?
Apparently, the answer is no:
ANWR is estimated to be able to produce two million barrels of oil a day. Since America uses about 20 million barrels a day that a pretty impressive amount. The problem is [...]

The average price of a gallon of gasoline has crossed the $ 4.00 mark:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Gasoline rose to a milestone mark Sunday as the national average compiled by motorist group AAA reached $4 a gallon for the first time.
The national average for regular unleaded rose 1.7 cents to $4.005, according the daily measure [...]

I’m not sure if they’ll end up calling this the oil shock of 2008, but it’s certainly having an impact:
The markets opened lower on Friday and then just kept falling, hit by remarkable rise in the price of crude oil and a spike in the unemployment rate.
Wall Street suffered its worst losses in more than [...]

Try as he might, John McCain is inexorably tied to the incumbent Administration and the Republican Party in general.
Which is why poll results like this should scare the living daylights out of the people at McCain HQ:

Put simply, it’s the 2008 equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s famous question. People don’t think they are better off now [...]