CNN Neuters Obama

Now is the time at Ed Driscoll.com when we juxtapose!

CNN, on Sunday:

Washington (CNN) – President Barack Obama confronted two political realities this week:
– Rising gas prices are bad for a politician’s poll numbers
– There is almost nothing a politician can do about it, at least in the short run.

Will Collier at PJM, today:

Take a look at this chart compiled by metalprices.com. It’s the price of a barrel of crude oil over the past 5 years.

See that big peak in the middle? That was the last oil spike, in the summer of 2008. Notice how the price hit a high point, then fell off a cliff afterward?

The day corresponding to that peak, an all-time high of $145.16/barrel, was July 14, 2008. By some strange coincidence, that was the very same day then-President George W. Bush lifted, by executive order, a federal ban on offshore oil drilling.

Read the whole thing. Buying Avery labels afterward is optional.

Incidentally, it’s got to be quite a comedown from having a rare combination of enough chutzpah and imaginary messianic power to say with a straight face, “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” to being told less than three years later by CNN that “There is almost nothing a politician can do about it at least in the short run.” Perhaps it explains why Obama has been, as Al Gore would say, so snippy recently.

But what about the long run?

(CNN quote found via Big Journalism, concept via SDA.)

Related: “Another Drilling Halt: Your Taxpayer-Funded Regulators at Work for You.”