The establishment press's lack of interest in associating President Obama with the sharp run-up in energy costs has been thoroughly documented by several folks at the Media Research Center, including but not limited to Julia Seymour when gasoline hit the $3 mark, and more recently Brent Bozell.
Saturday, the Associated Press's Mark S. Smith took the gas-price propaganda to the next level. As anyone would predict, he failed to assign any blame for the energy cost run-up to specific Obama administration policies such as the Gulf drilling moratorium and other barriers to production, and paid relative lip service to the pain it is causing average Americans. To Smith, those are apparently mere trifles.
Smitty's real problem is that those darned gas prices might be hurting Barack Obama's reelection chances (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
Costly gasoline clouds Obama re-election prospects
With gas prices climbing and little relief in sight, President Barack Obama is scrambling to get ahead of the latest potential obstacle to his re-election bid, even as Republicans are making plans to exploit the issue.
No one seems more aware of the electoral peril than Obama himself.
... In fact, Obama raised the issue unsolicited in a series of town meetings in Virginia, California and Nevada that were ostensibly about his deficit-reduction plan. And he made the gas spike the subject of his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
... As Obama well knows, Americans love their cars and remain heavily dependent on them [1], and they don't hesitate to punish politicians when the cost of filling their tanks goes through the roof. Indeed, for presidents, responding to sudden surges is a recurring frustration.
"These gas prices are killing you right now," Obama said at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, acknowledging that many Americans can't afford new fuel-efficient cars and must drive older models. For some, he said, the cost of a fill-up has all but erased the benefit of the payroll tax holiday that he and congressional Republicans agreed on last December.
On Saturday, Obama insisted in his radio and Internet address that the best answer is a long-term drive to develop alternatives to fossil fuel. He also renewed calls to end $4 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies. [2] "Instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy sources," he said, "we need to invest in tomorrow's."
... Legislative aides report House Republicans are considering a series of hearings and floor votes on measures to boost domestic oil and gas production when Congress returns from its Easter break.
... The president is among those who've said the surging price for crude is caused by worries about political upheaval in the Arab world and increasing demand from China and elsewhere. [3]
Still, Americans have a tradition of holding the party in power responsible for rising gas costs. [4]
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