In this dizzying political season you don't need a scorecard; you need an instant fact-checking machine. The president and John McCain have trouble defining with any consistency what their energy policy is and what we're really doing in Iraq. Mr. Bush toured Europe in an attempt to embellish his legacy and returned home to support drilling off shore and in ANWR to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Senator McCain climbed on board with similar ‘solutions'. Both insist we are "winning" in Iraq.

In a recent energy speech in Houston, Senator McCain trotted out what he called his "reform agenda" although there wasn't much reformative or innovative in his proposals. What is so disheartening about energy-policy discussions is the terrorist-tinged rhetoric that is often so much a part of the Republican mantra. President Bush tied Saddam Hussein to 9/11 in the minds of the American people, and justifies our continued presence in Iraq by insisting it is vital to securing that country's fragile democracy and, oh yes, its oil supply - - goals said to be an integral part of his administration's war on terror. Interestingly, while the Middle East is a significant source of oil, the top two US suppliers are Canada and Mexico.

Senator McCain also made the rather odd comment in his speech that we are borrowing money to buy oil and alluded to the enormous interest payments we have incurred, as if they were the result of ordinary Americans filling up at local gas stations. In fact, of course, most of the funds borrowed from China and elsewhere are being used to finance the war in Iraq. Clearly, discussions about energy and the economy are meaningless without factoring in the cost of the wars in the Middle East.

In the politically-charged climate of the day the issue becomes not so much about consumer pain over gas prices, for example, but ways to make voters think the problem is being addressed in some meaningful way. Senator McCain continues to promote his gas-tax holiday, sometimes backing a windfall profits tax to pay for it, sometimes not. And, while he previously supported the rights of states to decide whether or not to drill near their borders, he seems to feel now that such decisions should be federally directed. Governor Crist of Florida, in an abrupt about-face, supports Senator McCain's position regarding off-shore drilling in his state.

And while this contentious domestic brickbat is tossed from White House to candidates to Congress, our policy in Iraq receives far too little attention. In general terms, record-keeping there could be described as a lost art. According to the BBC.online (5/23/08), eleven million dollars has been spent "without any record of what goods or services were provided." And this kind of lapse seems to be more the norm than the exception. It is hard to understand why Congress has been unable or unwilling to separate funding for the troops from building projects that include the American Embassy and military bases.

Most disturbing are statements by President Bush that we are not planning to keep permanent forces in Iraq even as he seeks to forge an agreement with the Maliki government that would ensure a US presence and over fifty bases there on a more or less permanent basis. As part of what is effectively a treaty in all but name, the US would protect the Maliki government and direct military operations from Iraqi soil as it saw fit. Our troops would be tasked with maintaining order among warring factions, in the end being forced to take sides in a civil war.

So far the Maliki government and the Iraqi parliament have shown little enthusiasm for a prolonged American presence, seeing it, rather perceptively it would seem, as a continuing occupation that would intrude upon their country's sovereignty. Congress, too, has expressed concern about an arrangement engineered in the last days of the current administration that would pledge our country's military commitment in Iraq well into the future.

The American people should be able to count on Congress to represent their best, not special, interests. And candidates ought to stand for more than partisan pandering. There was a time when McCain's constant reshuffling of priorities and positions would have been called flip-flopping.