White House Incivility for Newt and Contempt for You

by Keith Koffler
March 12, 2012

White House Dossier:

I’d say it was disappointing that the White House, in a blaze of blinding of hypocrisy, labeled Newt Gingrich a liar today except that such behavior is so routine, and “disappointment” presupposes some element of surprise.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney outright called Gingrich a liar for suggesting $2.50 gas was acheivable, as I reported below. Obama was a little gentler, using the standard Washington euphemism for liar by telling a local TV anchor today that Gingrich “just isn’t telling the truth.”

Neither Carney nor Obama mentioned Gingrich by name, but $2.50 gas has been Gingrich’s mantra, so they are clearly referring to him.

And yet, as Carney and Obama push back with vitriol against suggestions something can be done about the price of gas, the premise of their unpleasantness is undermined by one of the leading economic writers in the nation, who is the economics columnist for THE leading business newspaper in the nation, the Wall Street Journal.

In a piece written late last week, Holman R. Jenkins Jr. stipulates that $2.50 gas is realistic.

“The Gingrich two-fifty plan slashes gas prices by increasing domestic production, opening up off-shore drilling, building the Keystone Pipeline, cutting red-tape regulation,” claims a 30-second Gingrich spot.

Don’t underestimate the psychological and political upheaval this would bring about.

Jenkins argues that the election of a president unequivocally devoted to expanding domestic production and reining in the deficit would signal to markets that a new mindset has taken hold and cause investors to bid down the price.

Jenkins doesn’t even delve into the specific steps Obama could take but won’t, like releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, telling our oil producing allies that it’s time to produce more, suspending various supposedly pollution-controlling gasoline formulation requirements, putting a hold on the 18 cent federal gas tax, and attempting to get states to reduce their substantial gas taxes.

I’m not saying I know that we can get gas prices down to $2.50 a gallon. I’m simply saying that reasonable people can disagree, and that a White House supposedly crusading to spread civility throughout the land is instead spewing nastiness.

Which brings us to its contempt for you.

In condemning Rush Limbaugh’s remarks about Sandra Fluke during his press conference last week, Obama made high minded remarks about the need for civility in public discourse, a theme we’ve heard from him before, even as he as president has launched vicious attacks on his opponents.

The contempt is that he thought you would believe him.