Remember way back in the last moments of the 20th century, when Bill Clinton was president and gas prices skyrocketed… to something like $2 per gallon? Remember how the Republicans found yet another way to crucify him by blaming the high prices on his policies? Saying things like:
Congressman Wally Herger recently denounced the Clinton-Gore Administration’s complacency during the current gas price crisis. ‘Northern Californians are being held hostage at the gas pump,’ Herger said. ‘The Clinton-Gore Administration has demonstrated a complete and total lack of leadership in preventing this problem. It is a clear failure of domestic and foreign policy.’
and
Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Menomonee Falls), Tom Petri (R-Fond du Lac), Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), and Mark Green (R-Green Bay) today blasted Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and the Clinton-Gore Administration for their failure to implement a comprehensive energy policy to deal with staggering gas prices Wisconsin consumers continue to face at the pumps.
Well, today a barrel of oil costs double what it did then, gas at my corner station is $2.35 — it’s $3.00 in Northern California — and I haven’t heard a single politician on either side of the aisle chime in to assign blame. Heck, I’m not even seeing anymore of those ridiculous “Pump Patrol” reports on local news. Where are the calls for releasing the national stockpile now?
Who is the genius who figured out how to keep people quiet on this one? And is this what the secret energy policy meetings with oil companies was designed to produce? We may never know.
