An Inconvenient Narrative

An Instapundit reader asks:

How come gas has gone up about 50 cents since January and we don’t hear the media complaining about the little people?

Just wondering…

And the Professor responds that it “Doesn’t fit the narrative.”

Well, in a sense it does: when gasoline prices were at their lowest in December, Tom Brokaw of NBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, the troika of east coast establishment liberalism, all called for the Office of the President Elect to raise gasoline taxes once in office. (You can see Brokaw in action about 6:30 into this edition of Silicon Graffiti.) So while they’d rather have higher gas prices benefiting the federal government’s coffers, all three news sources are perfectly OK with the average commuter (read: their customer base) getting soaked at the pump. And as candidate Obama told MSNBC last June, he’s happy with high gas prices as well as a deterrent to automobile usage  (such as driving to work to help grow the economy), as long as the increase is in the form of a “gradual adjustment” to the higher prices.

Is that happening now, or is it simply the normal ebb and flow of oil prices? If it’s the former, it’s a positive development in the eyes of both the legacy media and its favorite son, and good news is no news.