Bashing Big Oil has been a popular sport of late. The soaring oil price and high petrol taxes helped to inspire widespread protests across Europe last month. Though the initial target was government, the oil majors inevitably came under attack from all sides. Oilmen have met with rough treatment in America too. The soaring petrol prices this summer and the spectre of a heating-oil shortage this winter have made energy a hot issue in the presidential campaign. While the price fixers at the opec cartel have received some jabs, the lion's share of the populist attacks from Vice-President Al Gore have been aimed squarely at big oil companies. Rather than offering a vigorous rebuttal, George W. Bush has managed only timid retorts that the real culprit is "big foreign oil"—in other words, not his chums back in Texas.
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