Big Oil is under the big spot lights in the Senate.

The Senate Judiciary Committee headed up by Senator Pat Leahy is grilling Big Oil, as they always do when these prices jump to points that have the public outraged, and of course what ought to happen here is that the Big Oil execs ought to have their own hearings and bring in senators and demand to know from these senators why you’re preventing us from doing our jobs.

This is some energy policy that the Senate Democrats have put together.

“Senators told oil executives today that high oil prices cannot be explained by supply and demand, and that the oil industry’s concentration — and OPEC price collusion — is contributing to the costs facing consumers. Executives of the five largest oil companies were appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

… But Shell Oil Co. Chairman John Hofmeister said the prices could be explained, saying, ‘The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work.'”

Now, to illustrate here that we’ve got too many lawyers and too many idiots in the House of Representatives:

“The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members.”

This is like suing Bin Laden! To sue OPEC!

This was an overwhelming vote. I mean, the Republicans chimed in on this one, too. To sue OPEC members for “for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure. The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that US companies must follow. The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.”

This is embarrassing. This is flat-out embarrassing.

So our energy policy from the US government is sue OPEC and attack Big Oil execs.

And all of this is not going to produce one drop of oil.

Here’s a question.

Everybody wants more oil, correct?

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain need to be asked — and they should be forced to answer this question — why do you want the Saudis to pump more oil? Why do you want OPEC to pump more oil? Come on, now, you three are candidates for president of the United States.

Tell us, if you want our votes, speak up, why do you want more oil in the market?

Why?

When all three of you are proposing various forms of legislation that would punish oil and try to get rid of oil and to raise taxes on everybody.

Scary. This is literally scary stuff.

You’ve got the leading Democrat Party presidential candidate running around telling America just like Jimmy Carter, you have to learn to do with less. We are going to have to do with less. We are going to face a rollback of our lifestyle. This guy is a product of his environment, he’s traveling around in these elitist circles and he’s bought hook, line, and sinker the notion that we are despised and hated, and that’s why he keeps making stupid statements such as he’ll meet unilaterally without preconditions with anybody on the face of the earth, because he thinks we have to do that in order repair our image with all these people, and that evolves into the fact that the rest of the world hates us because we’re using so much of the world’s energy and we’re polluting the planet.

It’s maddening.

This guy is an empty suit. I am telling you, there is so much PR, so much buzz, so much spin about this guy, and he can’t fill out his suit. This guy, I’m telling you, folks, he’s not at all what he’s cracked up to be. He may be a smooth talker, but when you get down to genuine intelligence, common sense, and knowledge, this guy is an order of fries short of a Happy Meal.

So we want to know from all three of these candidates, “Why do you want more oil on the market?”

That question and the answer is so important, so crucial to our economy and our well-being it should also be asked to every candidate for Congress, the House and the Senate, asked and answered.

Let me add another group to this, too. Every journalist, every editorial writer, every TV anchor, every pundit should be asked and forced to answer, “Why should the Saudis pump more oil?”

The answer is obvious. Even a Harvard grad knows it. When more oil is pumped, the price goes down. The price of oil, of gasoline, of diesel, jet fuel, all go down.

And yet, knowing that simple fact, so many of these people demonize supply, they demonize the suppliers. They do everything in their power to prevent us from supplying our own oil, to reduce our own prices.

While demanding more oil on the market, guess who it is that’s facing an inquisition by the Senate Judiciary Committee?

The very people whose business it is to produce more oil are being asked about collusion and price fixing and all that from people who say the Saudis need to pump more oil.

When a political hack — and I don’t care who it is, take the politician of your choice — stands in front of a gas pump with the meter clicking and demands lower prices or calls for a committee hearing and the latest gimmick, a lawsuit against OPEC.

And when they rhapsodize about a frozen tundra they call an Arctic preserve that no one goes to visit, you can play back his or her own words, more oil lowers prices. When they play and replay the dream, the 30-year-old dream of alternate energy someday, somehow, somewhere, simply replay their words when they’re out there with these little photo-ops in front of the gas pumps, “more oil lowers prices.”