... analysts including former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, say Americans could be paying $5/gallon of gasoline by 2012."
-- Rory Cooper, December 2010
"Obama Will Make You Pay More at the Pump"
(note the date and READ IT ALL)
If I've blogged it, I remember it. That's both a blessing and a curse (there's so much I'd like to forget), so I might as well make good use of the blessing. Check out these Multiple Flashbacks:
“What do you say to people who are losing patience with gas prices at $3 a gallon? And how much of a political price do you think you’re paying for that, right now?”
This was a question asked of the president at a press conference in August…of 2006. The president was George W. Bush.
In fact, it was a question that was asked in one way or another regularly during the entire eight years of the Bush presidency, regardless of where energy prices stood at that moment.
In May 2004, The New York Times reported that congressional Democrats “were stepping up pressure on the Bush Administration to ease gasoline prices,” when prices were still under $2/gallon.
In April 2005, at another press conference, a journalist stated: “Mr. President a majority of Americans disapprove of your handling of social security, gas prices…”
In 2006, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) exclaimed: “Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled…They are too cozy with the oil industry” after she drove one less-than-energy-efficient block to a press conference at a local Exxon station.
In 2008, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “blasted” the president for rising gas prices on his (and her) watch.
In July 2008, ABC News asked the president what was his “short term advice for Americans about gas prices?” repeating a nearly identical question asked at a February 2008 press conference.
In April 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said gas prices were “the number one issue facing America today.”
You get the point. Yet, at the end of President Bush’s presidency, gas prices were 9% lower than when he took office (adjusted for inflation).So where have these outspoken critics been since Bush left office?
Since President Barack Obama was inaugurated, gas prices have been on the steady rise, as have home energy prices. During his tenure, he presided over arguably the worst federal response to an oil spill in our nation’s history, and has pressed legislation on Capitol Hill that would, in his own words, cause electricity prices to “skyrocket.”
Yet there has been almost nothing said by the media as consumers face $3/gallon gasoline at the pump in December [2010] for the first time in U.S. history...
* * * *
On[e] wonders what happened to Nancy Pelosi's press release of April 24, 2006, which said and I quote:
“Democrats have a commonsense plan to help bring down skyrocketing gas prices by cracking down on price gouging, rolling back the billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, tax breaks and royalty relief given to big oil and gas companies, and increasing production of alternative fuels.”
[Classic Democrat BS, is it not?] That press release was still on the web in 2007 but now it's gone with the wind, like that "commonsense plan" that never quite materialized outside of a press release or two ... even though she and the other Dims held the Senate and the Presidency for [what seemed like an eternity].
I don't suppose it helps to remind you that the week Bush took office, the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline was $1.51 or that eight years later, the week he left office, it was $1.83.
Or that now, it's ... whatever it is ... depending on the fuel taxes in your state.
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