We go to Mars, can't find new fuels

To the editor:

It makes me sick to see elected officials on TV wringing their hands and shedding crocodile tears for the poor American consumer over the price of oil and what it has done to the quality of life.

It makes me wonder: Where have people like the Kennedys, Clintons, Obama, Bond and McCains (along with the other hangers-on) been since 1976 when we had lines at the gasoline pumps? Did they have their head in the sand, or in their campaign contributors' pockets?

We put a man on the moon. We spent billions of dollars on a spaceship to look for water on Mars. We are bankrupting ourselves in Iraq, but we can"t develop an alternate for oil? Give me a break.

ROBERT TURLEY, Jackson