Fluffy funnin' with fellow celebrity Karl
These days I mostly skip the ‘interview’ portion of the Sunday gasbaggery exhibitions. An interview with someone singing the company line is not something I’m inclined to waste time on . . . . however, while far from the remote, I caught the last moments of some White House talker-whose-turn-it-was with David Gregroy (known in many corners of the liberal blogosphere as ‘Fluffy’) . Here’s how it went:
GREGORY: Is the President responsible for high gas prices?
WHITE HOUSE TALKER: Well, first of all . . .
Wrong!! Better answer? How about:
WHITE HOUSE TALKER: Of course not! First of all . . .
How hard is that?
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
SO very true. The GOP knows how to create those concise little, easily-repeatable nuggets for the public to latch onto. The Democrats feel the need to EXPLAIN. This works for the intellectual crowd but not for those looking for the quick and easy talking points.
The Dems are in dire need of 1) a bulldog communications person who will stand guard over the misinformation machine shredding its rhetoric with the facts and 2) people who will take those facts and put them into easy to tweet messages that will spread around the country putting right what once was wrong… 🙂
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mashed: the last effective ‘slogan’ from the Dem side that I remember was Carville’s 1992 “it’s the economy stupid.” Since then? Not so much. I listen to Harry Reid and all I want to do is go to sleep.
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Yup, they need a Madison Avenue guy.
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Maybe Jon Hamm?
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WHITE HOUSE TALKER: Well, first of all . . .
However, it IS the policies of the left that contribute to the higher gas prices. It’s the refusal to expand drilling in the gulf. To open ANWR. To allow us to drill off of Florid; or Carolina. It’s the actions of California that require multiple blends of gasoline and more as we move in the summer months.
It’s the refusal to build a pipeline from the oil fields to the refineries saving 2-3-4-5 dollars a barrel in transportation costs. It was then Senator Obama who voted for these things back in the day.
Soo…can the President change the price of gas now? Prolly not. But he absolutely should be held responsible for the votes of his past and the policies of his party.
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pino, oil prices and distribution are not in our hands or the Presidents’ hands. The Gulf permits were pulled following BP but were restored within a year. The Keystone pipelline was/is expected to be approved; that it was partially delayed – delayed, not denied – had to do with fine print; the House put a deadline on the decision that would have forced the administration to make an uninformed decision. It’ll be approved once the due diligence is complete.
Meanwhile, the developing world, China expecially, are increasing demand enormously and that’s not going to slow down antime soon. Demand means higher prices as supply has to be spread around more widely.
Our domestic oil production is highest in a decade. Norht Dakota pumped more (from shale) than all the OPEC countries combined last year. And for the first time in 60 years, we’re a net exporter.
While Obama can’t reasonably the increase in our supply, he certainly can’t be blamed for the greater increase in demand. We’re not likely to see gas prcies come down and we can’t produce enough to affect the world price of oil.
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pino, oil prices and distribution are not in our hands or the Presidents’ hands.
Not today’s, but tomorrow’s.
The Gulf permits were pulled following BP but were restored within a year.
This President is dramatically reducing the number of permits per year on federal lands.
The Keystone pipelline was/is expected to be approved; that it was partially delayed – delayed, not denied – had to do with fine print; the House put a deadline on the decision that would have forced the administration to make an uninformed decision. It’ll be approved once the due diligence is complete.
Seriously?
Demand means higher prices as supply has to be spread around more widely.
Why do you allow for the demand side of the equation by deny the supply side?
Our domestic oil production is highest in a decade. Norht Dakota pumped more (from shale) than all the OPEC countries combined last year. And for the first time in 60 years, we’re a net exporter.
And yet Obama reduces the production on the Federal lands he controls. Only through the production of oil on private and state lands has he been able to say what he says [psssst….he’s lying.]
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[Why do you allow for the demand side of the equation by deny the supply side?]
Not denying the supply side. But I think it’s obvious that demand grows exponentially, supply does not. Cannot. It’ll never ever catch up with demand to the extent that prices come down.
And no matter what, we still only produce 4% of the oil.
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Very true. Unlike conservatives, we’re not capable of saying “I’m always right”. Being the more thoughtful side, we always have that little bit of doubt…about everything. We need to just learn to fake arrogance sometimes.
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We endlessly try to ‘explain’. Even I don’t want to listen. Reporters do a good job of that explaining part. I want pols when speaking publlicly to be moving the message.
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For cripes sake …. oil is a global commodity and the US produces 4% of the supply (and probably at the highest cost).
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Yeah frank, but USA! USA! USA!
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It also that the media is pretty lazy, and assumes the public are too.
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top of my pet peeve list bruce. That is at the very top.It’s not about being liberal or whatever, it’s about what you said so correectly – they’re LAZY!
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