Candidate Obama: Americans Should Get Used to High Energy Prices

Ah, how the mighty fall. Back in 2008 while campaigning for President, Obama was asked what “sacrifices” he was willing to tell Americans they’d have to face, he listed paying more for energy (such as gasoline) as one, and used the question to explain just why his policies would, as he once famously said, cause energy prices to “necessarily skyrocket:”

It’s funny to listen to the President talk like this. For one because he acts like subsidizing and government “help” is something that must be done to make the United States more efficient when it comes to energy and secondly because he has completely changed his tune since. You would think a candidate who promised that energy rates under his policies would go up would be willing to take credit when they… went up.

But not this guy. He’s a dishonest politician’s politician who duped the American people.

Now he has changed his tune. Back in 2008, Obama said his policies would cause higher energy prices – and he was right. This, he said (as you can hear at the beginning of the clip above), was him trying to “lead.”

So what does that mean he’s doing when he says things like this?:

President Obama pushed back against critics who suggests he wants gas prices to increase, saying he doesn’t think anyone believes that would be the goal for a president seeking a second term.

“Just from a political perspective, do you think the president of the United States going into reelection wants gas prices to go up higher? Is that — is that — is there anybody here who thinks that makes a lot of sense?” Obama asked rhetorically at a White House news conference.

“Here’s the bottom line with respect to gas prices,” he continued, “I want gas prices lower because they hurt families … it’s a tax out of their pocketbooks, out of their paychecks. And a lot of folks are already operating on the margins right now.”

This is quite obviously in stark contrast to what Obama said in 2008 with regards to energy. Does that mean he’s not trying to lead anymore, based on what he said as a candidate? He’d rather shift blame and posture for reelection?

He’s Barack Obama. Of course it does.

What Charles Krauthammer says in his column today is spot on:

High gasoline prices are a major political problem for Obama. They are not just a pain at the pump, however. They are a constant reminder of three years of a rigid, fatuous, fantasy-driven energy policy that has rendered us scandalously dependent and excessively vulnerable.

Exactly.