After former house speaker Newt Gingrich won the South
Carolina primary at the end of January, he was pretty much on top of the world.
He was the front runner in the republican race for president, he was awash in
cash. Look what happened to Mr. Gingrich since then. The green line on this
graph. Yeah, total collapse. Newt Gingrich's disappeared in oblivion in the
republican race over the last month, sung like a stone falling through water.
So, newt Gingrich is a man currently in need of a path back to relevance. Enter
potential path back to relevance.
Gas prices are at the highest levels ever for this time of
year. Up 25 cents a gallon on average since the beginning of 2012. the recent pike in gas prices while bad news
for the US economy turned out to be great news for the politics of newt
Gingrich. Mr. Gingrich released a nearly 30 minute, 30 minute long TV ad that
is all about rising gas prices and what president newt Gingrich will do to
bring them down. He speaks directly in the camera for 29 straight minutes. No
video. No graphics, just "the wall street journal" reporting today
that the Gingrich campaign will run the entire video in key cities until Super
Tuesday on march 6th. Your regularly scheduled programming will not be seen
tonight so we can bring you 30 straight minutes of newt Gingrich talking into
the camera about energy while sitting in front of a blue curtain.
The issue of
gas prices and whether there is political advantage to be plunged from them has
gotten republicans very excited in recent day. "The new York times"
reporting that house speaker John Boehner has been using the potential rise in
gas prices as a way to potentially buck up the spirits of republicans. Speaker
Boehner instructed fellow republicans to embrace the gas pump anger they find
among their constituents. Republicans are psyched!
Republicans see political
hay that could potentially get made here. And when republicans get psyched,
when they think there is political hay to be made, they go on TV and they say
stuff like this.
Look, president Obama has been anti-energy from the
beginning. The president even gave a loan to Brazil, Brazil which is eating our
lunch economically, internationally. He gave them a loan and told them, as you
just alluded to, went down there and told them, we want to be your best
customer.
that was Karl Rove on the fox news channel this week saying
that president Obama is so anti-American energy that he gave money to Brazil,
so we can buy that oil from Brazil. If you travel around conservative media
circles, this has been taken as gospel for the last few years. President Obama
loaned Brazil $2 billion so they can drill for oil, while he's all but stopped
oil production here at home. Now, while that might make for an awesome
conservative talking point, it also happens to be 100% total unadulterated
bullpucky.
Here’s Karl rove again: Look, president
Obama has been anti-energy from the beginning.
President Obama, anti-energy from the beginning. Now,
according to Newt Gingrich and his 30-minute infomercial, the Obama
administration is, quote, anti-oil.
In fact-based world, here's what's actually
happening to the American oil industry during the Obama administration.
"The number of oil rigs in U.S. oil fields has more than quadrupled in the
past three years. The united states now has more rigs at work than the entire
rest of the world."
okay, Maddow, but just because we have more oil rigs
now, that doesn't mean we're actually producing more oil. Yes, yes, it does,
actually.
This was U.S. oil production during the last four years of the bush
administration. That’s the number of barrels produced per year. Here’s what's
happened under president Obama. Yeah, oh, hey, look, oil production is up. We
are producing more oil right now than we did at any point during George w.
bush's second term.
Look, president Obama has been anti-energy from the
beginning.
Sure he has. And I’m the homecoming queen.
The president even gave a loan to Brazil, which is
eating our lunch economically.
Actually, no. no. on the eating our lunch thing, think what
you will. That’s actually part of the appeal here. But the president did not
give a loan to Brazil. A loan was made to the Brazilian oil company by something
called the import/export bank of the United States. Not by the president. The
remit of the import/export bank is to export more American goods around the
world, and the way they do that is they make loans to foreign governments and
foreign companies who commit to buying American products. When foreigners buy
American stuff, that's an export. Now, you may like that kind of arrangement,
or you may hate it, but it is not the president who made this deal. and as long
as you care, this actual decision to extend this actual loan to Brazil, this
was a decision made by export/import bank board members who were all appointed
by George w. bush.
Somebody, alert Karl Rove!
When gas prices go up, as they
are going up right now, it is essentially a certainty that some politician
somewhere is going to try to make political hay out of it. Those politicians,
those political commentators, they deserve to be fact checked when they say
stuff like that. And when they are wrong, when they are lying through their
teeth, it deserves to be called bullpucky. It’s very simple.
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