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Facing cameras, microphones and rows of well-dressed lawmakers, the son of an oil man - a former oil man himself - told the nation once again it had been reliant on oil for far too long.

In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush said hope and opportunity for Americans depend on a stable energy supply. Through bursts of machine-gun-like applause, the president said ethanol is vital if the U.S. is to curb its oil addiction.

To achieve his ambitious vision, Bush set a mandatory fuels standard of 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels to be used by 2017.

This is a goal that would require as much corn as about five times Nebraska's 2006 corn production that's five times the amount of corn produced in the nation's third largest corn-producing state. Sound impossible?

It doesn't to the President, Congress and Midwest politicians, who all champion ethanol.

However, more and more economists, scientists and even a few farmers benefiting from the grain-alcohol nudge say the politicians' view is an intoxicated, rose-tinted illusion.

This ethanol disconnect - boon or bane - begs questions: What explains its political adoration? What underscores the fierce political allegiance?

"High oil prices - and a high oil proportion coming from outside countries was the motivation to find ethanol," said Ernie Goss, a Creighton University economist.

"Ethanol," he said, "is just bad decisions by the government."

Bad decisions backed by big bucks.

Agribusiness coughed up $248 million to federal candidates from 2000 to 2008, according to the campaign finance Web site, Open Secrets.

To ethanol's political supporters, the alternative fuel is the cure for a number of problems: It breathes life into dying rural communities and puts money into the hands of the heartland's hardworking farmers, allowing them to create a more sustainable world.

Not to mention, ethanol will reduce the amount of money paid at the pump and bring the country one step closer to energy independence, politicians say.

The politics of ethanol - and the potential mileage to be gained - has not been lost on those who would like to call the White House home.

"We can harness the ingenuity of farmers and scientists, citizens and entrepreneurs, to free this nation from the tyranny of oil and save our planet from a point of no return," Illinois Sen. Barack Obama told a New Hampshire crowd on the day of their January primary.
For Jordan Lieberman, publisher of Campaigns and Elections magazine, politics' connection

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