A Tale Of Two Candidates

At an event described as a "campaign-style" function outside of Washington DC yesterday, President Barack Obama blamed high gas prices at America's pumps on oil speculators. "It's true that a lot of what's driving oil prices up right now is not the lack of supply. There's enough supply. There's enough oil out there for world demand...the problem is, is that oil is sold on these world markets, and speculators and people make various bets, and they say, 'you know what, we think that maybe there's a twenty percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply. So we're going to bet that oil is going to go up real high' and that spikes up prices significantly," the President said.

Plausible enough. So was this scenario "true" in 2008, when he was campaigning (has he ever stopped?) for the Democratic presidential nomination?


Nah.

Almost three years to the day earlier, Sen. Obama blamed high gas prices "on Washington and the political establishment that he says hasn't stood up to oil companies. Obama said soaring gas prices were the latest manifestation of a Washington establishment that won't tackle the problems facing most consumers, and that he would bring needed change."


And change he did.