WE CONNECT DOTS: On most days Bill O’Reilly is high on everyone’s list of people you would like to meet for a beer. If you are a centrist or leftist but want to hear something from Fox News you dial in O’Reilly.
Except during presidential election years, when he has to sell his soul to the right wing extremists who finance Fox media. These benefactors have enabled O’Reilly to accumulate a personal worth of $50 million.
His recent syndicated column is the latest where O’Reilly refuses to let the truth keep him from bashing President Obama.
When Obama took office, average price of a gallon of regular gas was $1.84. “That means gas prices have more than doubled on Obama’s watch,” O’Reilly writes.
He breezes past two explanations for the increase, rushing to explain another reason why we are dumb if we vote for Obama. Speculators make their own huge profits, sometimes creatively, in what we jokingly refer to as the “free market.” Then, there is OPEC. Concerned with the Federal Reserve continuing to print money, the sheiks raise prices to offset the expected currency devaluation.
Getting to his point, he states “Americans are getting hosed at the pump (because) President Obama loathes the fossil fuel industry and does everything he can to inhibit production.”
“Wind power, solar energy, electric cars – all would make the planet cleaner and the sheiks poorer. Problem is technology is not developed yet. The President knows that but tilts at windmills anyway.”
Finally, O’Reilly notes the USA does not have an energy policy.
O’Reilly knows no such policy can be developed by a President without concurrence of Congress. The lawmakers have always done better shaking down energy companies for short term campaign benefits.
To make his point and earn his keep from Fox News, O’Reilly ignores the oil production and drilling record on Federal lands, onshore and offshore.
The present administration claims average production for Obama’s first three years represents a 13 per cent increase over average production over Bush’s last three years. Using numbers posted by the Interior Department’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue and verified by the independent US Energy Information Administration, here is another comparison:
From 2004-08, well into Bush’s tenure, oil production on federal lands and waters fell in four of the five years, with a net decrease of 16.9 per cent. From 2009-11, oil production rose two of three years, with a net increase of 10.6 per cent.
Recent numbers reflect an ongoing decrease in offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico, an enduring drop due to the massive oil spill there.
Who should really get credit or blame? Asks Politifact.Com, a Pulitzer Prize winning web site maintained by the Tampa Bay Times. Crossroad, the Republican super PAC, says Bush should get credit for domestic oil expansion on private lands and Obama the blame for a drop in public production, ignoring the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now there is a conclusion a propagandist like O’Reilly can get his arms around.
Oil industry analysts say a conclusion like that is just not that simple. Factors such as hurricanes and the development of fracking impact production.
To the oil production political hack list (Crossroads and Bill O’Reilly) add Rick Santorum. Hoping to be the Republican nominee he falsely accused Obama of “putting up a stop sign against oil drilling.”
At that time, instead, the Obama administration began to move toward artic drilling off the coast of Alaska, alarming some environmental advocates.
O’Reilly also knows the U.S. has begun to export oil, mainly to China.
O’Reilly is an experienced fiction promoter. He knows Obama won’t cry foul to keep his environmental supporters from attacking his oil production record.
