...MATTHEWS: James A. Baker from Texas, the former secretary of state, said the first war in the Gulf was about jobs, jobs, jobs. He said that was what the war about. I'm accepting your argument right now, your statement that this call for energy independence by the president is not because we have to rely on oil from the unstable Middle East. It has to do with our needs for economic growth. Is that your bottom line?


EVANS: Chris, that is my bottom line. The world is producing oil, the Middle East, every country at its full capacity and it's very unlikely that we're going to be able to see supply in the world grow from the levels where we are right now. There's a debate about that. I'm one that falls in the camp that says it's going to be very, very hard to do that. But what I do know is China needs to continue to grow, India needs to continue to grow, America needs to continue to grow. So what that simply says is we've got to develop new forms of energy for the United States and the world.

Holy Guacamole, Batman. The line about "it's very unlikely that we're going to be able to see supply in the world grow from the levels where we are right now" is pretty much the definition of peak oil. This guy is coming out and saying that the president is concerned about the growth levels seen in world oil production. Of course, if you've been following any of the comments by Matthew Simmons or Roscoe Bartlett, this is not a shock. But for myself and the other 10 people in the country watching Hardball, it was a bit extraordinary to have a former official on a mainstream media outlet just come out and say it.