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Is John McCain Capable Of Being Correct?

• Environment • General Election • Policy

Although much attention has been paid to John McCain’s manufacturing a new surge timeline in Iraq, let us not forget that he’s also manufacturing the psychology of the oil market.

Bush recently lifted the executive order banning offshore drilling that his father put in place in 1990. He also asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore.

“The price of oil dropped $10 a barrel,” said McCain, who argued that the psychology of lifting the ban has affected world markets.

The White House didn’t go that far. Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said the price drop also could reflect diminished demand.

“I don’t know if we fully deserve the credit,” Perino said.

There is a reason that Perino is loath to take full credit for the price drop - it’s not deserved. The falling prices have more to do with the fact that American gas use is falling about as sharply as American gas use can fall, dropping 2.4% year-over-year.

It really does leave you to wonder if McCain’s policy briefings consist of tossing darts at a wall, one area with problems and one area with explanations. “Okay, so the…housing crisis, yes! We haven’t talked about that one in a while. Is actually caused by…Moqtada al-Sadr? Ah, fuck it, run with it. Call up Romney and let him know.”

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Posted by Jesse Taylor on 08:52 AM • (8) Comments

All I know is it’s not called gasoline anymore, it’s now Freedom Fuel™...

Comment #1: MikeEss on 07/24 at 09:39 AM

McCain is just continuing the Bush style of Republican Government. Step 1: Identify a problem, in this case high oil prices. Step 2: Identify something you want to do, in this case provide large oil companies with cheap oil to sell. Step 3: Pretend the item in Step 2 will actually solve the problem in Step 1. Sure you don’t solve any problems, but the rich don’t have those type of problems anyway.

Comment #2: Rob on 07/24 at 09:49 AM

Americans are using less gasoline, yes. But the usage went down world-wide once the price went up. I sometimes wish Americans could control a global commodity, but that certainly isn’t the case with oil.

$10 less per barrel really doesn’t make much of a difference at the pump though, does it? If anyone in government wants credit for that, shouldn’t there also come with that a lot of blame for the increases that came before the recent drop?

All I know for sure is that I don’t plan to buy a car that runs on just gasoline ever again, no matter what the mileage.

Comment #3: jon on 07/24 at 10:10 AM

Then there’s also the minor point that this happened shortly before the close of trading on the August contract… If there’s a lot of speculators holding long positions, you’d expect a sudden drop in the price as they all scramble to sell before they end up having to take delivery. Which of course then pulls down all the future months because of arbitrage.

Comment #4: Dunc on 07/24 at 10:23 AM

Way over his head.

It’s pretty obvious McCain is not up to the job. His gaffe is on detail that matters.

Comment #5: Bliansky on 07/24 at 10:23 AM

Even beyond the MSNBC article, prices had already started to drop well before Bush eliminated the executive order against drilling. It’s not just undeserved, it’s a similar attempt by McCain like the surge meme to attribute a later to an earlier event.

Comment #6: David Voegtle on 07/24 at 01:23 PM

It really does leave you to wonder if McCain’s policy briefings consist of tossing darts at a wall, one area with problems and one area with explanations.

No, I think he has two spinners, you know, like the kind you used to use in board games when you were a kid—one with problems and one with solutions—and he flicks the little arrow on each one to figure out what to put together.