Gas and Hot Air

Sarah.

I have an addiction. I'm a junkie. She's lethal to me. It's an ache I just can't shake.

Sarah.

She's my conservative kryptonite*, my beautiful Alaskan loon. No matter how many equally kooky right-wing characters join the GOP clown-parade, no one can take her place in my heart.

I've got a fever, and the only cure is more Sarah.
Being categorically and pathologically incapable of silence, Ms. Palin obliges. She publishes a grand facebook note (the media expression outlet of kings), capitalizing (haha, get it?) on Pain At the Pump, the high gas prices, the Obama administration's immoral strategies to inflate these prices.

First of all, she's just so fucking wrong. There is basically no way federal drilling policies can impact gas prices like this, as economists agree. It would take years for drilling policy changes to affect gas prices right now. Seriously, google anybody with a decent understanding of how this works and you'll see that she's speaking nonsense, spouting unrealistic and unreal economics. Here's a start.

fact: there are high oil prices. 

fact: Obama is president.

ERGO: Obama = high oil prices.

Ok, now that I've gone over her wrong wrongness of being wrong, let's move on to a different point she makes. Coincidentally, this one is also fucking wrong. She acts like oil drilled in the US will be a nationally-exploited resource, apposite to our economic woes and an instant boon of plenty. We are living in a land of milk and honey and oil, y'all! 

Oil...companies drill oil. Oil companies sell oil. On the global market, I might add, and under a GOP reign, apparently with an unbelievably low amount of regulation. So whatever happens, it won't be a magical resource the Good People of these United States will be able to line up for dividends on. Sarah, like a good Republican, is in it for the big companies. 

Oh, and just for kicks, let's take a look at the real crazy in her facebook note:  

"This was no accident. Through a process of what candidate Obama once called “gradual adjustment,” American consumers have seen prices at the pump rise 67 percent since he took office. Let’s not forget that in September 2008, candidate Obama’s Energy Secretary in-waiting said: “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” That’s one campaign promise they’re working hard to fulfill!"

For the price levels in Europe bit, she pulls from a WSJ piece about alternative energy (a valid discussion worth having, not a dark threat to our pocketbooks but an important investment in the future. Ye gods, those environmental wackos!). Here's a part she forgot to mention:

"But Mr. Obama has dismissed the idea of boosting the federal gasoline tax, a move energy experts say could be the single most effective step to promote alternative energies and temper demand."

Hm, let's see, Sarah. Your economics are wrong, your facts are off, your understanding of energy policies is surpassed by knowledge my readers can accrue in fifteen minutes from judicious googling, and the only leg you're left to stand on is wild idiotic conspiracies about how Obama is blatantly and forcefully inflating gas prices himself. In short, you are staying true to yourself.

*fun fact: google "Sarah Palin kryptonite." Way more results than I would've predicted, they're a common pairing. Journalists need to read a wider range of comic books and they can start saying things like, "Ron Paul may be Sarah Palin's color yellow!"