Gas Attacks

1. The U.S. exported more gasoline, diesel and other fuels than it imported in 2011 for the first time since 1949, the Energy Department said today.

2. Blaming the president for the recent rise in gas prices ignores many pertinent factors:

Now certainly America’s oil consumption, and to some degree our policies in the Middle East, affect global oil prices. Refining capacity is also a factor, and it happens that an unusual number of US refineries have been shut down recently by their operators. (The West’s confrontation with Iran is also having an effect, according to this news report.) But we are also clearly in lockstep with global price trends. So if you want to blame Bush for that peak (as Nancy Pelosi did; neither party is immune to political opportunism) or credit him for that crash, or you want to blame Obama for the subsequent rise in prices, then you should also blame and credit German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, and the rest of ’em.

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