The New York Times told us about three weeks ago that "there's little President Obama" can do about the current pump price of gas. Since then, it has become a well-established media meme. Poor guy.
Well, not really. Four years ago, another U.S. president did something which caused the barrel price of oil to drop by over $6, and the press spent the rest of the day trying to pretend that the drop had nothing to do with his actions -- and almost succeeded. What follows is from my related NewsBusters post on July 15, 2008 ("Oil Drops Over $6 a Barrel; I Wonder Why?"):
I suggested, based on the quoted support above, that there were two reasons for the price drop It looks like we got some of the price reduction for two reasons besides Bernanke:
First, George Bush carried out his half of the "Drill Now" deal by issuing an Executive Order repealing his father's previous order against offshore drilling.
Bush then showed he was serious by forcefully arguing his case at his press conference today.
Economist Walter Williams also predicted the drop a few days before it occurred: "I guarantee you we would begin to see a reduction in today’s prices even if it (enabling more drilling) took five to 10 years for us to get the first barrel."
So part of the reason the press can pretend that there's little President Obama can do about gas prices is that they almost completely covered it up when another president did something which worked.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
