Turnabout is fair play. In 2008, candidate Barack Obama assailed the Bush administration for the rising gas prices. With gas prices predicted to rise to $4.25 a gallon in April, the Republicans feel that they have an issue. Some of the Democrats are already running scared and advising the president to tap the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) to dampen the spiraling costs.
Barack Obama made the energy issue the theme of his weekly broadcast and, on the one hand, took credit for increased domestic production while, on the other hand, claiming that the rise in prices was due to circumstances beyond the administration's control. Instead of gimmicks, he called upon Americans to "get our priorities straight and make a sustained, serious effort to tackle this problem.'
Republicans are not likely to be persuaded and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich sees the issue as a way of summing up the Republican critique of Barack Obama. Gingrich accused Obama of making the country more dependent on foreign countries, symbolized by Obama's bow to the Saudi King. He ridiculed the president for placing his reliance on algae for biofuels or on better tire inflation, rather than opening up federal lands for drilling.
Gingrich also accused Obama of trying to dictate American's lifestyle, including having everyone drive GM's electric Volt automobile. In an obvious appeal to fellow hunters, the former speaker added "can't fit a gun rack in a Volt."
The pro-Republican Wall Street Journal joined the attack in an editorial that accused Obama of claiming credit for increased domestic production, while trying to shrug off responsibility by pointing to international events. The last time the administration linked gasoline prices to events elsewhere was during the fighting in Libya, but now that Libya had fully resumed oil production, why weren't prices declining? By Obama's logic, continued the Journal "higher prices are one more reason to raise taxes on oil and gas drillers while handing even more subsidies to his friends in green energy."
The Journal noted that higher prices were also a byproduct of a debased dollar and that this was one of the inflationary chickens coming home to roost.
Fox News, which also favors the Republicans, derided Obama for claiming credit for increased US production. Increased domestic production was the result of the shale oil boom and investments on state lands, they claimed, so that the production increase came about not as a result of the Obama administration but in spite of it.