PRES. BUSH: Breakthroughs on this and other new technologies will help us reach another great goal: to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.

(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: But this was a news story that appeared on almost every paper in the country. Here's the Philadelphia Inquirer the next day: "One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil his energy secretary and national economic adviser said the President didn't mean it literally. What the President meant, they said was that alternative fuels could displace an amount of oil imports equivalent to most of what America is expected to import from the Middle East in 2025. But America would still import oil from the Middle East because that's where the greatest oil supplies are." His secretary of energy said this was just an example of what could be.

MR. BROWNSTEIN: Well, oil is fungible, so in the sense that it's going to come from somewhere. The real question, though, here, I think, is, is this goal ambitious enough? Middle Eastern oil only provides 11 percent through the first 10 months of 200--11 months of 2005 of our total oil consumption. And the real issue with the President's plan is, is there anything here in the near term that will affect the way Americans consume and use oil? Put a lot of money--he's proposing to put a lot of money in environmentally-friendly technologies for the long run: more solar, more wind, clean coal, next-generation cars. But what's missing is any kind of mechanisms in the plan to move these ideas from the lab to the marketplace in any kind of near term. He consistently rejects the idea of any kind of federal nudge on the market: tougher fuel economy standards, requirements for utilities to generate a certain amount of their power from renewable energies.

MR. RUSSERT: Government fleet.

MR. BROWNSTEIN: Government fleet. He does not--there's nothing here that will sort of bring this in the near term. It sort of seems to me like, if you have a house, your house--your energy bills are too high, you can either say, "I'm going to start saving so that in 10 years I can buy a better house," or you could money into your--windows and your insulation today. He chose the first course here, and I think some of the debate will be "Can we do better in any kind of intermediate term?"

MR. HARWOOD: Tim, I don't know if you've cued up the previous statements by the President in earlier State of the Unions about reducing dependence on foreign oil, but he's said it every single time he's gone before the Congress. So I think members of Congress don't take too seriously the idea that this is a fundamental shift in policy. But Republicans on the Hill, they want a fewer--a little less of throwing the long bomb and a little more Jerome Bettis up the middle.

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MR. RUSSERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. HARWOOD: So their idea is that--focusing on health care, on education, on competitiveness, on energy, while trying to exploit the President's advantages on national security, pressing his Iraq policy, which he was most passionate about, and pressing that--the definition of the NSA wiretap issue, that's what they want as a prescription for trying to recover a little bit politically.

MR. RUSSERT: Is it worse for Republicans, with a congressman I quoted from Wisconsin in the first segment, was that, if this is a referendum in November of '06 on Iraq and corruption, there's trouble?

MR. BROWNSTEIN: Absolutely. I mean, I think the Republican--the President's State of the Union was probably a good indicator of where the Republican psyche is at this point, as John said. There was a real contrast on--on Iraq, national security, bright lines, tough, the President confident, that we've seen in the five years, wanting to draw a big contrast to the Democrats. Very cautious and chasten on domestic policy. A year ago, he wanted to remake Social Security, now he wanted to restudy it. It's a sign that they've been forced to lower their sights somewhat, trim their sails, at a lower approval rating going into the election year.

MR. HARWOOD: And he wants to unplug some of the electricity to the polarization in Washington, that's why you saw a lot of outreach to Democrats. That's not helping the Republicans, they're trying to put the temperature down just a little bit.

MR. RUSSERT: John Harwood, Ron Brownstein, thank you. To be continued. We'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: That's all for today. We'll be back next week. If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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