Maybe it's just because it's August

It's well known that August in a nonelection year is a slow time for political news. So when someone actually makes some news, it gets amplified a lot. Two items are getting a lot of discussion on the shout shows from the inflated talking heads.

First, Pat Robertson, a man who ran for president in 1988 after founding a Christian broadcasting network, basically declared a bounty on the head of a foreign leader today. Robertson said the United States should assassinate Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, rather than spending $20 million on another war. Chavez leads a country that sits on huge oil supplies and which is also heavily involved in the South American drug industry. It's a lot of instability controlled by someone who really does not care much for the Yankees.

Robertson, meanwhile, is a huge supporter of President Bush, and also a major American Christian leader with a lot of influence over fundamentalist Christians. The call for assassination was met with a rather tepid official response -- basically that he has First Amendment rights and that of course we aren't planning to kill President Chavez. If Howard Dean or Jesse Jackson had said that, the Bushies likely would be spinning it out of all sense of proportion.

Second, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, a "Democrat" working for the Bush Administration, announced a great plan to help Americans save fuel. As gas prices climb to record highs -- an average of $2.61 per gallon nationwide -- it is good to know that the administration is on top of it. Their proposal? Higher fuel efficiency standards that will increase gas mileage among light trucks such as SUVs by about two miles per gallon by 2011. Now that is taking a stand. That's bold. Once again, the Bushies say they want to reduce the dependence on foreign oil, yet they don't push very hard for it. The best way to reduce the dependence on foreign oil is to reduce the need for oil at all. That means using less of it. Not just a little less by 2011, a lot less and soon.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.