The media are giving President Joe Biden a free pass on the East Coast fuel crisis, refraining from criticizing the White House amid widespread gas shortages and skyrocketing prices.
However, as Newbusters’s Geoffrey Dickens notes, the press has not always gone so easy on U.S. presidents during fuel crises.
In fact, when prices skyrocketed between 2005 and 2006, news anchors and reporters blamed the Bush administration, and capitalism specifically, for the problem.
“Across the nation, gas prices went to record highs today,” CBS News’s John Blackstone said in 2005. “Will it get to the point that only the privileged can afford gas?”
At CNN, anchor Soledad O’Brien called on the Bush White House to take drastic action, saying in an interview with then-Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, “What can you, and what can the president do, to help people? Because the prices are clearly spiraling out of control.”
She added, “What about a national price cap? There are some people who say gas is going to cost us $3 a gallon, the average will be $3 a gallon by the end of the week — by next week. What about a national price cap?”
Later, in 2006, ABC News’s Meredith Vieira griped, “I’m a little peeved when I hear the president say there’s not much we can do about this [gas prices], folks. … Where is his responsibility in all this? Five and a half years, and we’re dealing with these gas prices? It’s ridiculous.”
CBS’s Rene Syler, meanwhile, asked that same year, “As Americans struggle to keep up with high gas prices, oil companies are reporting record earnings. Is this a case of corporate greed out of control?”
Last week, a Russian hacking group shut down the 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, which supplies nearly half of the East Coast with its fuel. The group responsible for the cyberattack, DarkSide, promised to return control of the system to the U.S. energy company in return for $100 million. Colonial Pipeline Co. this week submitted to the group’s demands, paying at least $5 million of the original ransom.
“The payments have been made to the terrorists,” billionaire John Catsimatidis told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo Thursday.
The Colonial outage has led to a hiccup in supply, which has sparked panic buying among consumers. Many motorists have loaded up on as much fuel as they can carry, cleaning out gas stations all along the Eastern Seaboard. As always, the panic is going to do more harm than the original offense, as hoarding will lead to far greater, costlier, and longer-lasting shortages than a multiday pipeline outage.
Fox News reports:
Catsimatidis added that the pipeline “will be flowing by Monday at the latest.”
[…]
Once the payment was made, in untraceable cryptocurrency, the hackers gave the pipeline operator a decrypting tool to restore the network, according to the Bloomberg report.
Gas shortages, ransoms, and a virtual hostage situation? Biden really is Jimmy Carter 2.0!
More seriously, it’s important to note presidents have little to do with gas shortages and rising prices. They don’t dictate either. However, unlike Bush, one can actually say Biden’s policies, his baffling response to the Colonial hack, his anti-fossil fuels policies, and his shuttering of the Keystone XL pipeline, are making matters at the pump so, so much worse.
But don’t expect to hear anyone at NBC or CBS complain about those details. After all, there’s a Democrat in the White House.
