August 20, 2008 --
TEXAS oilman T. Boone Pickens, a leading advocate for alternative energy sources, told a tale out of school yesterday about Rudy Giuliani at an energy summit in Las Vegas. While acting as an adviser to Giuliani's failed presidential campaign, Pickens recalled, he warned the candidate not to make promises he couldn't keep about weaning the US off foreign oil. "I said, 'Please do not get up and say you're going to be energy independent because you can't produce that,' " Pickens related. "That's going to take time and a lot of planning to do. He said, 'OK, OK, I got you.' " Two weeks later, Pickens said, Giuliani announced that he'd make the nation energy independent if he became president. "I [had] told him by the time you get to November of '08 you will be this deep in energy problems and it will be the No. 1 issue. I did get that right on the time. I didn't get it right on Giuliani."
