Whether the reason is prices at the gas pump, record quarterly profits or a damaging spill, Big Oil is the perennial object of Washington’s wrath.

Most voters’ knowledge of the oil industry begins and ends at the self-serve pump, and Congress is a sucker for a villain in a black hat. In targeting bad guys, however, Congress is the original “Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.” Its strategies to punish Big Oil usually miss the intended target, with a result that is as negative as it is predictable.

As recently as the 1970s, Big Oil was a clearly identifiable entity. The “Seven Sisters” (Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, Gulf, BP and Shell) dominated petroleum supply globally and domestically. Today, their global role has been largely supplanted by the national oil companies of OPEC and elsewhere. Forced to focus on international operations, the sisterhood now numbers only four. Smaller upstream companies have filled the domestic void the major companies left behind.

The unprecedented release of thousands of classified documents on Afghanistan this week tells us what we already know about the nearly 9-year-old war: Afghanistan government officials are corrupt, Pakistan's intelligence service betrayed the U.S., the Taliban are ruthless guerrilla warriors, and our soldiers are weary of fighting them.

As Geoff Morrell, spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, put it, "This information, though new and unprecedented in the scope and the sheer size of this leak, the information itself—the substance, the content of these documents—is not particularly new or illuminating. It points to issues that we've identified as being problem areas for months if not years."

But conservative hawks who want to win in Afghanistan and to stop Iran's nuke program will find a few gems in the pile to bolster their cases.

Perhaps the most telling of the recent revelations of the liberal/left Journalist, a list consisting of about 400 major liberal/left journalists, is the depth of their hatred of conservatives. That they would consult with one another in order to protect candidate and then President Obama and in order to hurt Republicans is unfortunate and ugly. But what is jolting is the hatred of conservatives, as exemplified by the e-mail from an NPR reporter expressing her wish to personally see Rush Limbaugh die a painful death -- and the apparent absence of any objection from the other liberal journalists.

Every one of us on the right has seen this hatred. I am not referring to leftist bloggers or to anonymous extreme comments by angry leftists on conservative blogs -- such things exist on the right as well -- but to mainstream elite liberal journalists. There is simply nothing analogous among elite conservative journalists. Yes, nearly all conservatives believe that the left is leading America to ruin. But while there is plenty of conservative anger over this fact, there is little or nothing on the right to match the left's hatred of conservative individuals. Would mainstream conservative journalists e-mail one another wishes to be present while Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or Michael Moore dies slowly and painfully of a heart attack?

Anyone with a lick of common sense will tell you that when you are in a hole, you need to quit digging. Continuing to dig will only create a larger problem. Do schools teach this?

Even President Obama's national debt commission recently told him that his continuing spending orgy is digging America into a gigantic fiscal hole.

America's total debt is expected to exceed $14 trillion next year. Each American's share of that debt totals just short of $50,000. If Fedzilla was honest and put all the figures on the table, we are in debt over $100 trillion due to the unfunded financial obligations for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

That's $100 trillion. 100% predictable, 100% preventable.

This gigantic level of borrowing and spending is unsustainable by any measure, by any means.

North Korea uses atomic weapons tests, long-range missile launches, weapons proliferation, and attacks against its neighbor to extort inducements. It is time to break that extortion cycle with real consequences before Pyongyang makes another major provocation, especially now as the regime is preparing to change leaders.

Sixty years ago North Korea invaded South Korea, never expecting the West to come to Seoul’s aid. That provocation led to the Korean War with an estimated 2.5 million lives lost. Today the 1953 armistice that put the war on hold is cracking and the situation is “highly precarious,” according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who warns of the real risk of escalation.

Warnings that the security situation could spin out of control come in the wake of the March sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors. An international investigation found North Korea culpable but the ever politically correct United Nations refused to publicly finger North Korea in spite of strong evidence.

Numerous speakers appeared before the President’s oil spill commission to plead for the resumption of drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Even the commission, which did not contain one representative from the oil and gas industry, was inclined to support the lifting of the moratorium.

This commission was formed by President Obama to study the oil spill disaster and to make sure that another one does not happen in the future. There have already been hearings in both Washington, D.C., and New Orleans. Much is known about why the disaster occurred and the mistakes that were made by both BP and the federal agency charged with oversight of the drilling operations.

To prevent future mishaps, more vigorous oversight is needed, but drilling in the Gulf does not need to be stopped.

Unfortunately, the President decided to issue a six-month moratorium on deep-water drilling that will have a very negative impact on the economy of Louisiana.

The NAACP approved a resolution recently condemning the Tea Party's fringe element of their movement for "explicitly racist behavior." It would require a flow chart the likes of which have not been seen since the days of health reform to explain all of the ways this is wrong.

For starters, the mere act of criticizing a black president is not racist. Nor is it racist to raise the public consciousness to the very important issues of spiraling debt, misguided bailouts, and a series of social policies that may bankrupt the country. Our nation benefits from uninhibited discussion about these serious issues. Very simply, when movements--Tea Party or otherwise--openly debate these issues, the truth rises up. When the NAACP labels and dismisses the Tea Party as racists, it has a chilling effect on this important debate. As a result, the national dialogue is stifled.

It is sad that the nation's oldest and most revered civil rights organization has been so co-opted by the Democrats that use the racism epithet to chill political discussion, rather than engage opposing viewpoints on the merits.

President Obama was supposed to be post racial. When you ask him, he says, he doesn’t believe the attacks on him are racial. But everyone from his wife to the head of the NAACP tells it another way. They believe any attack on the President is racist or racial.

Dick Morris calls it the “ghettoizing” of Barack Obama. He was referring to the tactic of stirring up black and Hispanic voters with charges of racism where there is none. It’s a ploy to stir up voters of color in this off-year election. From the NAACP to the tepid attempt at “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” in the eleventh hour of this congressional session, it’s all about him, Barack Obama.

The Tea Party was the target last week at the meeting of the NAACP. They indignantly and unanimously voted (behind closed doors) for a resolution claiming the Tea Party movement is racist but they won’t release a text of the resolution.

The Tea Party movement is a movement about liberty and fiscal responsibility. A kind of Paul Revere call in the night that “the British are coming.

One has to jack up one's imagination to try to come up with dumber decisions from our flagrantly corrupt, out-of-control government than those occurring daily in America today.

Americans are tested more and more to convince ourselves that the rookie in chief, his Mao Tse-tung fan-club administration and gang of anti-American czars could possibly be that stupid or, horror of horrors, are in fact intentionally steering the good-ship America into the rocks.

How else to explain these developments:

• Appointing self avowed Marxists and Communists like Van Jones and Cass Sunstein et al. to be in charge of anything in America is clear and present treason from where I stand.

Continuing our journey into understanding what a liberal really means when they vomit up their misleading rhetoric, this installment of the Liberal Dictionary will tackle some of a liberal’s favorite subjects: President George W. Bush, the media, capitalism, poverty, and 9/11.

When a liberal says ‘President George W. Bush:’ “The reason why our country is in the poor shape it’s in, is President Bush!”

What they mean: “Boy, we’re really screwing things up since we took control of the Congress and presidency. We need to quickly deflect attention from our failures by blaming the previous administration. They no longer have the forum we have, so they’ll hardly be able to combat our spin and lies. Speaking of President Bush, he’s stupid isn’t he? He’s just not a smart guy—although, we won’t let that stop us from implying he’s led huge, complex conspiracies to go to war against Saddam Hussein. It doesn’t make much sense, but we’re lucky the mainstream media doesn’t question us! Phew!’

The mid-term elections are on the horizon, and the Democrats are doing everything they can to avoid a Capitol Hill slaughter come November. Now there’s even word that good ole Slick Willie is going to be their answer, Bill Clinton campaigning cross-country, knocking on doors and trying to bring back the Democratic glory days.

Beating Bubba to the campaign trail for a completely different reason is none other than the Messiah. President Obama went on the road to Michigan to sell the success of his stimulus plan. This all before taking to the hills of Maine for another another much needed vacation. Fore!

A new White House report claims that the stimulus worked. Well, it doesn’t actually say that, but the President’s message was simple: “Even though things are bad, they would be way worse without the stimulus.”

This report says exactly 3.6 million jobs were “created or saved” but where are they? And is that number on top of the nearly 2.5 million jobs lost since the stimulus went into effect? The administration can sell you all the snake oil they want, but that doesn’t put America back to work. It is a numbers game and the American people are being sold a bridge. Will they buy it?

They’re baaaaack! The Democrats, in their persistent view that anything which possibly can be taxed should be, are again proposing federal legislation to impose sales taxes on interstate purchases made over the Internet.

The measure, H.R. 5660 sponsored by Rep. Bill Delahunt (D.-Mass.), has the Orwellian title of the “Main Street Fairness Act.” New-speak continues in the subtitle: “To promote simplification and fairness in the administration and collection of sales and use taxes; and for other purposes.” At least the last four words are accurate.

The “other purposes” in this case are the attempt to collect billions of dollars from consumers to plug states’ budget gaps while kneecapping Internet-based merchants for the benefit of brick-and-mortar stores.