Bill Clinton being blamed for high gas prices

[wyldwolf]

Perhaps you might have noticed an earlier post where the right is blaming former President "Eight Years of Peace and Prosperity, 73% approval rating the day after his impeachment" Clinton for the Duke lacross rape case.

Now, I guess to draw attention away from President George "FOX news 33% approval rating and lying SOB" Bush's domestic woes, the high gas prices are now Clinton's fault.

From NewsHounds:

In a Hannity & Colmes segment billed as (to paraphrase) “no more whining, it’s time to look at constructive solutions to high gas prices,” it took substitute co-host Mike Gallagher less than 10 seconds to blame Bill Clinton.

In another example of FOX News' idea of "fair and balanced," the only guest was Republican Congressman Jack Kingston. Alan Colmes started the discussion by saying, “Now that it’s after heating season and people have paid enormous prices to heat their homes, many who can’t afford it - after Republicans have taken oil money, and after Republicans killed a Democratic proposal to make price-gouging a national crime – a federal crime – now all of a sudden – Isn’t that like closing the barn door after the animals leave?”

Kingston claimed that Republicans passed an anti-price gouging bill in October, 2005 “which did not get one single Democrat vote.” Comment: I did a quick bit of research on this and did not find the bill Kingston was referring to but I suspect it contained drilling in ANWR. Perhaps the readers can shed some light on this.

When it was Gallagher’s turn, he began by saying, “Congressman, Alan sort of paints a picture that it’s the Republicans who have been the obstacle over energy measures. We know that for eight years under Bill Clinton, there was little or nothing done under his watch as far as trying to face this problem.” Comment: And just how much WAS a gallon of gas under Bill Clinton? My recollection is it was under $2.00 a gallon.

Not surprisingly, Kingston agreed. As the conversation moved toward ANWR, Kingston said, “Just keep in mind President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have allowed us to explore for oil in Alaska eight years ago, in 1995. Now if that had passed, we would have a 20% higher domestic supply of oil today.”

Comment: This seems to be an overly optimistic assessment of the ANWR potential, which in the government's best case scenario, estimates that oil from ANWR would provide about 6% of the amount of our imported petroleum in 20-30 years after the onset of production.

http://www.newshounds.us/2006/04/26/surprise_surprise_clinton_blamed_for_high_gas_prices.php

[saltpoint]

1. I knew he was behind it the whole time!!!!!

The Right Wing hates the Clintons and they'll never get over it.

They're such wusses.

[NewJeffCT]

2. I thought their talking point was it was "environmentalists'" fault?

Are they flip-flopping again?

[FloridaPat]

3. But 80% of the Alaska oil goes to Asia. How is that helping us

from importing oil?

[kurth]

4. People guilty of oral sex are capable of anything

Of course, everyone knows Bill did it.

[izzie]

5. Bill Clinton must have God like power to do all these things.

I wish I had known that when he was President.

[Dunvegan]

6. At what point does President Bill Clinton...

...become the Bush Administration's official Emmanuel Goldstein?

[riona]

7. This blame the other guy thing

isn't it a mental condition that requires treatment?

[noonwitch]

10. Borderline personality disorder

Everyone else makes you feel bad. My mom is one, so I know all about it.

[OneTwentyoNine]

8. LOL...Late 1998-99 Gas prices here were around .80-.90 per gallon...

There was a World wide glut that lowered prices below $1.00 per gallon for a few weeks. Oil companies wanted to make DAMN sure that never happened again so they began to sytematically shut down refineries. Most of the time during the Clinton years gas was about $1.10-1.20 here in the midwest.

[CTyankee]

9. Hey, just yesterday a guy was blaming Clinton for taxing his Soc. Sec.

benefits! Clinton did, but he didn't START the taxing of SS benefits. That was good ole Ronald Reagan in 1983. Clinton raised taxes on wealthy individuals. However, over the years there has been NO action by the Republican controlled Congress to adjust that tax for inflation, so it is now affecting the middle class. Of course, if we didn't have this trillion dollar deficit (instead of the surplus we had under Clinton), maybe an adjustment could be made.

Worse and worser...

[depakid]

11. Fox "news" will say anything

If the Dems ever manage to regain power, they'll be the poster child for extensive divestment and media -re-regualtion.

[Placebo]

12. Bill Clinton was in office for 8 years -- and that ended 6 years ago....

Maybe it's just my fuzzy math, but I've decidered that the the Bush administration really is, technically, the executive branch of government, and since Clinton was able to clean up 12 years of republican mess, and bring unmatched peace and prosperity, while having an opposition congress for most of his presidency, and Bush can't seem to get anything done right, having one party control of all branches of government for the majority of his presidency...

I mean, really, I think the torch was indeed passed in 2001, and if not then, definitely in 2002, and the time that you could blame Clinton for our various messes ended right around there.

[nickinSTL]

13. what complete and utter BS

"if that had passed, we would have a 20% higher domestic supply of oil today."

BS! They wouldn't even be pumping it yet, and it isn't (by all the estimates I've seen) enough to get anywhere NEAR 20% of domestic need.

And it seems to me I've heard recently that the quality of that oil is such that it wouldn't even be used in the US, it'd be shipped to Asia. Total and utter rw bullshit.