With Friends Like These

What's a guy to do when his "friends" let him down?

Joe Kennedy runs a program (Citizens Energy) that accepted free oil from Citgo -- a oil company owned by the Venezuelan government and its U.S.-hating "president" Hugo Chavez -- and sold that oil to lower income folks at a cheap price.

An altruistic idea, but it may have left Kennedy with no real friends.

Kennedy countered the argument that taking freebies from our "friends in Venezuala and Citgo" was a politically dangerous idea by stating that not taking oil from Chavez would be "a crime against humanity,"

An interesting choice of word regarding his dealings with a known dictator charged with multiple human rights violations by Amnesty International.

"Some say it's bad politics..." Kennedy laments, "some say it's wrong to take (Venezuelan oil)." At times, he seems to claim that going to the Citgo station and buying oil at retail price is the same as getting it for free, as his organization does. If they don't like the idea of using Venezuelan oil, people "should be waking to work" and "just not be using oil products."

Things have gotten worse now that Citgo has decided to suspend donations to the organization; Kennedy seems to have nowhere to turn for help.

Part of his problem with finding no replacement benefactor(s) could be the ease he has shown when taking free oil from a sworn enemy of his own country.

Kennedy defended his taking free oil from Chavez: "US oil companies refused to contribute to the program, even when they recorded booming profits in recent years."

How would Kennedy look had he been alive to take free Volkswagen cars from Hitler and distributing them? Or, taking free vodka from Stalin? Would Kennedy today brag about graft oil had it come from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

Perhaps if Kennedy was more thoughtful of those from whom he was receiving charity, he may have developed an alternate plan, instead of leaving his program in the hands on someone like Hugo Chavez. "The decision remains in the hands of Citgo Petroleum and its parent company Petroleos de Venezuela," stated Citizens Energy in a press release.

Did Kennedy's single-minded acceptance of Chavez' oil prevent him from exploring other sources? Could it be that Kennedy's disdain for the "Big Oil" companies and the free-market system have anything to do with the private oil companies' reluctance to work with him?

In a column in the Huffington Post last summer, Kennedy insulted the oil companies by calling them bull-headed and smug and demeaned the companies for "lecturing the American people on the virtues of supply and demand" in dealing with high gas prices.

Kennedy further went on to demand that the U.S. government force companies to donate profits for "fuel assistance fund for the poor" and for the "development of alternative energy or investments to drill for new domestic pools of oil and gas."

"What is abundantly clear is Big Oil thinks first and foremost about its shareowners and top executives," he sneered. "The time to wait for Big Oil to voluntarily act on behalf of all its constituencies is over."

Not a way to make new "friends," Mr. Kennedy. If you don't donate oil out of virtue, we will force you to donate at the point of a gun instead. Not a persuasive argument, there.

Like they say, Joe, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

And, with friends like these who cares whose enemies they are, right Joe?