It's A Gas, Gas, Gas . . .

Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker, writes:

"Last week, Mitt Romney, who, it now seems, is going to become the Republican nominee whether anybody likes it or not, called on President Barack Obama to fire three of his Cabinet members: the Energy Secretary, Steven Chu; the Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar; and the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson. According to Romney, the three have spent the past few years carrying out a not-so-secret plan to raise the price of gasoline at the pump. Only by firing the 'gas-tax trio,' Romney told Fox News, can the President demonstrate that he did not approve of this plan. 'Time for them to go,' Romney said.

"Romney's remarks came just days after Louisiana's governor, Bobby Jindal, also on Fox, accused the Administration of driving up the cost of gas in the service of its 'radical' agenda. 'The reality is, gasoline prices have doubled under this President -- highest prices for oil and gasoline in a hundred and fifty years,' Jindal said. 'People used to think it was because of incompetence from the Obama Administration on energy. I think it's because of ideology.' (As far as 'reality' goes, Jindal's characterization of gas prices is inaccurate; they were higher in 2008, under President George W. Bush.) Romney and Jindal, meanwhile, were echoing comments made by Newt Gingrich, who accused the President of adhering to a 'radical ideology, which wants to artificially raise the cost of energy.' And Gingrich was following Rick Santorum, who, back in February, declared that Obama's energy policies are based on a 'phony theology' that 'elevates the earth above man.'

"Like almost anything that the Republican candidates can manage to agree on, the Obama Administration gas-price-hike conspiracy theory is nearly a hundred-per-cent hokum. The fakery begins with the theory's premise: that the President could, if he wanted to, reduce the price of oil. Oil, as it is well known, is a global commodity traded on a global market."