What the Republicans said three months ago when gas prices rose above $4/gallon:
Mitt Romney, March 18, 2012: “He gets full credit or blame for what’s happened in this economy, and what’s happened to gasoline prices under his watch, and what’s happened to our schools, and what’s happened to our military forces. All these things are his responsibility while he’s president.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), April 6, 2012: “The president holds the key to addressing the pain Ohioans are feeling at the gas pump and moving our nation away from its reliance on foreign energy. My question for the president is: what are you waiting for?”
Boehner, April 6, 2012: “The president’s own policies to date have made matters worse and driven up gas prices.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Feb. 28 2012: “This President will go to any length to drive up gas prices and pave the way for his ideological agenda.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), March 13, 2012: Obama is “fully responsible for what the American public is paying for gasoline.”
What the Republicans are saying now that gas prices are falling (and are predicted to continue falling, likely below $3/gallon):
crickets.
8 Comments
I regularly look at Fox Nation and have noticed an obvious trend. Gas prices will simply cycle out of the discussion and something else will take its place.
Debt, unemployment, the stock market, the current war (food, business, etc., not the actual wars we are in), illegal immigration. As one thing improves, they just shift the focus elsewhere. It is very easy to find “the stock market plummetted” stories on Fox Nation, as it is to find “gas prices skyrocket under Obama” and “unemployment tops X.X%” But it is impossible to find stories when something positive happens.
I actually feel for people who use that as their main source of news, because they likely have an artifically terrible perspective on reality since there is rarely ever anything positive mentioned. Sometimes they honor people for accomplishing things, and sometimes they have pictures of scantily clad women. And, strangely but understandably, they have several Tebow stories running especially during football season (even though past that there are virtually no sports stories).
But beyond that it is just 24/7 doom and gloom. And the comments range from hysterical to terrifying. Believe me when I say, there is always some way to tie Obama into EVERY story.
It solidifies my opinion of the persecution and fear driven methods of the right wing and religious folks. Looking at ‘left-wing’ sites like Huffington Post, the entire atmosphere is different. But maybe that’s through my own rose colored glasses.
If Obama or any of his supporters try to take any credit for gas prices going lower, the GOP and its supporters will merely reverse their argument and say that the president can’t impact prices at the pump.
@ 1032 Agree with your observations. There have been a number of recent studies that have shown that Fox News viewers are less informed about things going on in the world than any other group, including those who don’t watch any news shows at all. Fox’s traditional response to such things is that there is a clear bias. As soon as a study is conducted that shows that Fox viewere are MORE informed, they’ll brandish it every chance they get.
All that fear serves a purpose though. After they have a big story that scares the pants off their audience, they bring on a conservative pundit who explains a partisan solution to the ills of the Left.
As IK has posted about before, there’s really no basis for gas prices being directly affected by the POTUS, no matter who they are. Like a lot of what else has been said against Obama, this tactic feeds on the public’s uncanny ability to swallow whatever lie people in power tell them.
I hope that gas prices do continue to fall, and I am happy to give credit where it is due. But I find it more than a touch convienient that gas prices fall and are projected to fall as we approach election season. If the POTUS has tht much control over the prices then maybe he can work to keep them low year round not only when convienient. I would prefer more stable gas prices rather than high fluctuations as it works politically.
POTUS and the Executive Branch have little control over the multi-nationals and their price management actions. Has nothing to do with the election, per se, but is, in fact, a bit curious in that I’d have thought that big oil would want to raise prices to anger more voters who mistakenly blame/credit the POTUS with the power to manipulate prices, thereby leading to a Publican victory in November. Of course, far too few folks realize that refined petroleum products have been leaving the US in record amounts of late, having been sold to higher bidders than domestic consumers. Maybe that market is easing a bit.
Fox News=Hitler. In 1933 when Hitler became the dictator of Germany, he did away with education. He sent the youth to schools and colleges to physically train them and brain wash them. So for twelve years, there was a whole uneducated generation. This is what Fox News does. The GOP always wants to cut back education. A more maleable group. Hitler imposes the old order of peasants and Squires. GOP wants all the wealth in the top 1%. Hitler wanted all the wealth where he could wage war. GOP will want to wage war ASAP if they get control.
Taliban banned education. 20 years of no education before Bush went in Afghanistan at the end of 2001. If you want to control people, you give them no education and take the wealth. This is eighty years later from what Hitler imposed on a country to ruin it. And no one has learned anything. 70% of our population watch Fox News and believe and want to believe the lies.
So.. Fox news is equal to Hitler and the Taliban.
Ok, first of all, I actually completely agree with you, if you look at it as the Republicans cut funding to schools, implement stupid tests that cause nothing to be taught in schools except what is on the test, and then they get to decide what is on the test. Let me guess, critical thinking is not on the test….
The problem is, how do you make this point without looking like the opposite of a tea-bagger idiot standing there with a picture of Obama with a Hitler mustache?
If you state that, ‘Classic right leaning policy tends to lower the general levels of education and produce a less educated electorate unfamiliar with critical thinking principals and more likely to be heavily influenced by jingoistic catch phrases and less influenced by logic and facts’, most people are asleep by the time you hit the word ‘leaning’.
But if you hold up a sign and scream ‘Republikans are Facists’ then you’re on the evening news, Rachel Maddow and Rediculessness. And you have done your part in further polarizing the electorate and making the situation worse.
Any ideas on what a solution could be????
Join the critical thinkers like yourself on this blog? 🙂