who’s got an oil problem. . . George?

The President remarked in his SOTU that,

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. Here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

Which is funny on several counts. First, as Think Progress notes, US dependence on imported oil has increased during Bush’s tenure. Sixty-six percent of our oil comes from foreign sources today, compared with 58% in 2000. Further, the last energy bill signed by the President actually rejected a Senate plank to reduce oil consumption by one million barrels a day by 2015. In fact, under Bush’s plan, “our need for imported oil will continue to grow for as long as models are able to project.”

None of this should really be a surprise, though. As Max Blumenthal points out,

According to the Center for Public Integrity, the GOP has accepted 73% of the whopping $67 million the oil industry made in political contributions between 2000 and 2004. Bush himself is the oil industry's largest recipient, having taking over $1.7 million from the oil industry from 1998-2004.

Update: It seems the “addicted to oil” line is the one that sticks. It gets top billing all over: NYT, LAT, WaPo, BBC.