by Daniel Gardner

Gasoline prices are rising rapidly and drivers are getting mad. We always get mad when gas prices cramp our driving lifestyles. But this time around something is missing. Have you noticed the lack of blame from the mainstream media?
 
In 2008, coincidently another presidential election year, gas prices rose precipitously and the mainstream media carried stories daily blaming Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. After all, both men were "Big Oil" men.
 
In a CNN interview on July 17, 2008, Nancy Pelosi said, "The price of oil is at the doorstep -- 4 dollars plus per gallon for oil, is attributed to two oil men in the White House." I believe she meant to say, "4 dollars plus per gallon for gasoline," but you get the point.
 
In one of the Democrat's weekly radio addresses in 2008 Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) gave the following remarks: "When President Bush took office, gas prices were less than half of what they are today - and oil was less than one-third. Then, seven years ago, President Bush and Vice President Cheney secretly invited executives from the big oil and big energy companies to the White House to write our national energy policy." Blame Bush, blah, blah, blah.

In the summer of 2008 then-candidate Barack Obama gave a stump speech on energy at a gas station in Indiana in which he said as president, "We'll also take steps to reduce the price of oil and increase transparency in how prices are set so we can insure energy companies aren't bending the rules." All of the steps Mr. Obama has taken to-date have apparently not worked. That may not be transparent, but it's surely clear enough to those of us pumping our own gas.
 
After the 2010 BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman knocked down that moratorium June 22, 2010, only to have the Obama administration reinstate the moratorium…voluntarily lifting it the following October. However, the administration has still maintained a virtual moratorium by slowing the permit process dramatically.

 President Obama's energy policy of limiting domestic oil exploration and development in favor of pouring billions of dollars down the drains of failed green energy companies like Solyndra and Ener1 is certainly one major factor raising the price of gasoline, though you wouldn't know that from the mainstream media. And, the Keystone Pipeline project is no longer in the news.
 
In fact, the mainstream media have not even recognized the impact high gas prices are having on inflation. "The economy is improving." "We're moving in the right direction." Really? Maybe in Washington or in the rarified ivory towers where only elite progressives dwell! Down here on planet earth we're paying an arm and a leg to fill up our tanks, and groceries aren't so cheap either.
 
The mainstream media has been reluctant to lay the blame for anything at the door of this White House, and I'd bet they'll blame everybody except Mr. Obama for rising gas prices when people really start looking for somebody to blame.
 
After all, we're in a presidential election year, and ideology and politics drives the mainstream media to favor progressive candidates in all their "news" stories. Meanwhile the rest of us will just have to bear our fair share of sacrifices at the pump.

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