March 08, 2012 07:59 PM UTC

Because They've Got To Keep Talking, That's Why

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank opines thoughtfully:

The Republican National Committee sent out talking points instructing party faithful to take up the issue. House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) urged his caucus to do the same. And, on Wednesday, the House energy committee obliged: The Republican majority called in a bunch of oilmen for a hearing dedicated largely to blaming President Obama for high gas prices…

In fact, domestic oil output has sharply increased under Obama to the highest level in nearly a decade and is expected to continue expanding. Even if that stopped, it’s not obvious that European price levels (which are inflated by taxes) would be an automatic result.

But reason has nothing to do with it. As the stock market advances and the labor market improves, Republicans are losing their best campaign themes. That makes the recent spike in gas prices – in part a byproduct of higher economic growth – a potentially crucial issue for the opposition…

Note the concerted nature of this campaign–while the House Energy Committee rounds up oil executives to speculate wildly on what the results of all domestic production suddenly ceasing would be, because that’s of course what Barack Obama is just about to do, Rep. Cory Gardner holds a press conference in front of a Conoco station to announce duplicitous legislation that won’t bring down the price of gas. And while Chevron announces that it’s pulling out of oil shale research in Colorado, GOP Reps. Scott Tipton and Doug Lamborn push legislation to expand oil shale leasing, with or without (in this case, apparently without) industry.

And the best part? All this useless grousing is to solve a problem Obama supposedly created, even though the facts show there’s been more domestic energy produced under Obama than his Republican predecessor! This is one of those cases where, if you understand a few simple facts, you can plainly see that one side of the argument is obviously lying to you.

But we get why they are. With the economy coming back and the GOPs’ long-cherished social wedge issues morphing into liabilities, they’re running out of gas–figuratively, not literally.