Two years ago in his State of the Union address, President Bush admitted that "America is addicted to oil" and announced plans to address the problem. He returned to the theme in last year's State of the Union with a bold initiative to address "our dependence" on oil by stressing alternative sources of energy that he said would cut gasoline use by 20 percent over 10 years and confront global climate change.

But that was then.

Now gasoline is above $4 a gallon, so never mind the environmental happy talk: Now is the time for cynical political talk. Yesterday Mr. Bush urged Congress to lift its long-standing ban on offshore oil and gas drilling.

Mr. Bush is an ex-oil man in an administration partial to the oil industry and has long been in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a call he renewed yesterday along with seeking to lift restrictions on oil shale production in several Western states. He also signed a bill in 2006 that expanded exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.

Notwithstanding his past positions, the president's challenge to Congress was still sharply at odds with his recent rhetoric -- and that made it close to the thing supposedly most despised by Republicans: a flip flop. The GOP's presumptive standard-bearer in the presidential election, John McCain, was even more hypocritical. He supported the offshore drilling ban in the past, but in a speech in Houston on Tuesday reversed himself (although he still opposes drilling in ANWR).

The political calculation is plain. In the fall campaign, the Republicans are going to tell gas-price-stressed Americans that their plight is the fault of the Democrat-controlled Congress. Mr. Bush couldn't have made this clearer: "I know the Democratic leaders have opposed some of these policies in the past," Mr. Bush said. "Now that their opposition has helped drive gas prices to record levels, I ask them to reconsider their positions."

In a move that made the political point sharper for Congress (and Democrats), he also said that he wouldn't lift an executive order prohibiting offshore drilling until lawmakers repealed their moratorium on drilling first passed in 1982 and renewed every year since -- a period, of course, which includes the six years that Mr. Bush's party ruled Congress. As for that executive order, it was first signed by Mr. Bush's father in 1990.

While Democrats have often been more concerned about environmental protection, the truth is that the offshore ban has remained in place for so long because it also had Republican support (witness Mr. McCain's old position). If Mr. Bush really wanted to ditch it, why didn't he when he had the chance?

Obviously, because the political mood did not favor it -- Americans wanted both their cars and a healthy environment. At $4-plus a gallon, Mr. Bush wants to play the blame game and cynically bet on public amnesia.

But what good will it do Americans? In fact, this is a quick fix that is not quick. If Congress acted tomorrow to lift the drilling moratorium, it would be years before production came on line.

Even that would not be long-term relief, because those reserves would eventually be drained and Americans would be back in the same hole, except their children would be left with another bitter legacy to add to the mountain of debt they will inherit -- abandoned oil rigs in azure seas, the last of the wild places invaded, the chance of environmental degradation.

Mr. Bush got it right in the first place: America is addicted to oil. To treat an addiction, you don't seek a cheaper fix when the drug becomes too expensive -- you make a change in your life. A true leader would see this; he would heed the ancient wisdom that you don't sell your birthright for a mess of pottage, which is what lifting the oil drilling bans promise to be.