Fox News and Rep. Connie Mack vs. Joe Kennedy and Venezuelan Heating oil
Reported by Melanie at News Hounds:
In the lead segment on Your World today (February 12, 2007), Neil Cavuto hosted Congressman Connie Mack (R-FL) and gave him a platform to attack Joseph P. Kennedy II. Mack is having a conniption because Kennedy is accepting oil from Citgo to distribute to the poor through his Citizens Energy Corporation.
Citgo is “a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., the Venezuelan state-owned petroleum company.”
Cavuto introduced Mack saying that he wants Kennedy to “stop participating in ads touting Chavez’s cheap oil and [to] apologize for supporting a dictator.” He said though Kennedy claims that “because there have been cutbacks in energy aid to the poor in this country led by folks like you, you’re the last to complain. What do you say?”
Mack said, “that’s crazy of him,” that the whole ad campaign – to help the poor, don’t forget – “is crazy,” because he’s aligning “himself so closely with Hugo Chavez who is a sworn enemy of this country.”
Cavuto asked Mack what he wants Kennedy to do and Mack said he’d “like to see the ads come down and for him to apologize.” Cavuto said he had a copy of a letter Kennedy sent to Mack in response to his attack but Mack said he “just got a copy” and hadn’t “had a chance to read the whole thing yet,” but his “objection is to Joe Kennedy…”
The banter between Cavuto and Mack continued along these lines with the democratically elected Chavez being referred to as “a dictator” by both Cavuto and Mack. At the end, Cavuto asked Mack if we should “turn his oil away,” and Mack, true hypocrite that he is, said, “I don’t think we can turn it away,” but we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil,” yadayada, but “the real question” is “why is Joseph Kennedy so closely aligning himself with Hugo Chavez who wants to disrupt the balance of power? He calls himself a dictator.”
Joseph P. Kennedy II letter to Rep. Connie Mack: Feb. 12, 2007
Dear Congressman Mack:
I appreciate your interest, however misguided your conclusions may be, regarding our efforts to provide low-cost heating oil to thousands of low-income people, whose federal fuel benefits, by the way, you voted to cut by over $1 billion just a few months ago.
I also appreciate the kind of moral leadership you’re attempting to show in spite of the hypocrisy of your argument. If, in fact, your objection to our program is the politics of President Chavez and the actions that he’s taken — which you feel threaten our democracy — I would suggest you hold all 558 million barrels of oil we import annually from Venezuela to the same moral standard and not just the small slice we provide at a discount to the poor.
If you moral indignation requires that we not accept the discount oil to distribute to our most vulnerable families, then that same high moral standard should require that you not drive your car because it, too, probably uses gasoline made from Venezuelan oil. Nor should you be willing to fly to Washington because the airlines are using Venezuelan jet fuel. Heaven forbid that critics of our program stay warm with Venezuelan heating oil as they compose diatribes against charity. And you certainly shouldn’t flick your Bic because it fires up Venezuelan benzene.
Since you express concerns with a non-profit energy company doing business with a Venezuelan-owned oil company to help the poor, I’m sure you have letters in the mail to Exxon/Mobil, BP, Shell, Conoco Phillips, Valero, and even Halliburton objecting to the billions of dollars in oil profits they’ve made in Venezuela to benefit their executives and shareholders while helping the economy of Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. By the way, the same oil that we have, only a bit more expensive, is used in running U.S. planes, trains, and automobiles — I’m sure you want all your constituents to give up their oil as well as my constituents whose oil you’re trying to grab. Perhaps I also missed the press release in which you urged them to devote a tiny slice of their record profits to help those least able to shoulder the burden of rising energy prices. We wrote every major oil company and every OPEC nation asking them to share some of their bounty with the poor. They all refused, but I would be happy to include you as a signatory the next time we make an appeal. Your signature perhaps would convince them to finally do something.
I would also gladly join you in trying to turn back President Bush’s current proposal to cut the federal fuel benefit by 44 percent in spite of record demand from families suffering winter’s bite in the Northeast or buried under tons of snow in the Midwest. We could also form a moral coalition to make oil companies pay their fair share of royalties and use some of the windfall from rising royalty revenues and taxes on skyrocketing energy prices to help those in need. Maybe the fact that you live in Florida diminishes your concern for those who have to forgo food or medicine to pay for heat or turn to dangerous heating sources to stay warm, risking their lives to brave the cold. If so, maybe you could advocate that they move to your district to alleviate the need to figure out ways to protect them. There are a lot of disagreements I have with President Chavez, but what are we supposed to do in the absence of adequate help from the federal government or of any help from other oil companies — turn down the fuel for those in need?
Your logic, which vaguely resembles the purity of the neocons who got us into the war in Iraq, would have us focus our wrath on countries you consider undemocratic. If that’s your concern, then where is your blistering statement denouncing oil from Saudi Arabia, a country run by an unelected monarchy and which produced 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers? Perhaps I missed your letter renouncing oil from Kuwait because of its socialist policies of universal health care, education, and food for its citizens. Russia, I’m sure, is also in your doghouse because of President Putin’s growing tendency to clamp down on democracy. And while you’re at it, I’m sure you have every intention of ending our country’s $310 billion a year trade with China, the largest communist power on earth.
Once we’ve followed the Mack Doctrine and refused oil from every country that fails to meet our disciplined moral standards, I’m sure you’ll enjoy your walks to Washington, because there certainly won’t be fuel to fly you there. Incidentally, your strolls would make an enormous contribution to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions — another one, I’m sure, of your moral crusades.
Thank you again for your letter. I would love to join with you in dealing with the real threat to this country — our system of a kind of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor — a system that has granted billions to oil companies and their executives.
Sincerely,
Joseph P. Kennedy II
Letter from Rep. Connie Mack to Joseph P. Kennedy II, which preceded Kennedy’s letter to Mack: posted on Connie Mack’s website Feb. 12, 2007
Dear Congressman Kennedy:
Venezuela’s Communist President Hugo Chavez is a sworn enemy of the United States. That is why there is absolutely no excuse for you to be praising him in television commercials and media interviews for any reason whatsoever.
More than forty years ago, your uncle, President John F. Kennedy, spoke about the perils of communism in the Western Hemisphere and the threats posed by Fidel Castro, saying, “We and our Latin friends will have to face the fact that we cannot postpone any longer the real issue of survival of freedom in this hemisphere itself.”
Those words still ring true today.
Hugo Chavez is providing your company “low cost heating oil” not to help the American people, but rather to exploit his apologists in the name of public relations. Sadly, you have chosen to actively participate in his charade, even as he continues to attack the United States, our leaders, and freedom-loving people everywhere.
While you have gone out of your way to publicly praise Hugo Chavez, he’s gone out of his way to crush the hopes and dreams of the Venezuelan people and to destabilize freedom, democracy, and the United States interests throughout the Western Hemisphere.
The United States has always stood toe-to-toe against tyrants and thugs, and we always will. I urge you to stop airing television ads and participating in activities that praise Hugo Chavez, and apologize for your defense of this very dangerous dictator.
Millions of Americans understand that Hugo Chavez is the most dangerous man in the Western Hemisphere. As a former member of Congress, you should too.
Sincerely,
Connie Mack
Member of Congress