High Gasoline Prices Threaten Obama's Career, Bummer

In spite of a docile media it's doubtful that Obama can slip the blame for high gasoline prices. Everyone knows of his drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico after the BP spill and that moratorium drove several drilling rigs out of the Gulf, perhaps forever. The pipe fitters unions know damn well, as does everyone else that he killed the Keystone pipeline. Reading the remarks coming from the North American Prospect Expo in Houston makes Republican complaints about Obama's record seem almost mild. "These have been the most difficult three years from a policy standpoint that I've ever seen in my career," said Bruce Vincent, president of Houston oil and natural gas producer Swift Energy. "They've done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting," he fumed.

Responding to Jay Carney's statement that Obama had "put in place policies that will dramatically expand the amount of exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, will expand the amount of exploration in Alaska, will expand the amount of natural gas production here in the U.S."

"The administration has done everything BUT support drilling," said former Shell executive John Hofmeister. "We are on the verge of slipping into an energy abyss."

Under President Obama, the American Petroleum Institute notes, leases on federal lands in the West are down 44%, while permits and new well drilling are both down 39% compared to 2007 levels and there's been a 57% drop in monthly deepwater permits since 2008, according to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permit Index. In Wyoming the EPA is studying fracking with an eye toward hindering that and in the Eagle Ford Shale in Texas the Interior Department is attempting to restrict drilling out of concern for the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.

Unlike the unemployment rate and the consumer price index, high gasoline prices speak for themselves. The voters don't need the LSM to tell them times are bad.