Last night near the end of an annual dinner with a group of friends, as the room began clearing out I approached my friend Geoff Slavin. He’s a former Marine who served in Viet Nam. While we share the same core values, Geoff and I don’t have much in common politically.

Those left in the group knew it was time for our annual political debate; they didn’t want any part of it. The friendly, respectful sparks began to fly.
There were a host of issues to debate: the performances of President George. W. Bush and Governor Martin O’Malley, immigration reform, and of course oil.
It’s no easy take taking on Geoff; he’s bright has experienced a lot (of course he’s much older than I am) and is well read. He makes a lot of great points.
The one area he could not move me on was when we dove into talk about oil. I think there should be a floor price of gasoline – a la Thomas Friedman’s Patriot Tax – to discourage the use of terrorist-funding oil.

My problem with Geoff’s argument was that he really seemed just to be trying to oppose what progressive thinkers are saying. He couldn’t tell me what was wrong with investing in less polluting energy that didn’t involve paying money to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan. I can’t understand how anyone could oppose that.

These are bad regimes that we are funding. Meanwhile, two of the world’s most powerful armies – ours and Israel’s—haven’t been able to defeat terrorism, despite their significant efforts to at least thwart terrorist activities. Israel has been using force for 59 years and the U.S. has now been in Iraq longer then we fought the Nazis.

Logic tells me that if we stop buying the terrorists’ main export, they would be weakened.

At next year’s gathering, when I’m guessing we’ll be no better off because there still won’t be a sensible policy from the Bush administration, I hope Geoff sees the point. More importantly, I hope the American leadership gets out of the oil slick that is slowing down their thoughts on this.