Brent Bozell’s “Media Mash” segment about oil prices last night on Hannity was yet another instance where Bozell used accusations of bias against the rest of the media as a cover for promoting his own bias - in this case via statements that were both false and unfounded. Guest host Liz Cheney didn’t challenge a single misstatement.
In the clip below, a wooden Liz Cheney – who seems to have inherited every bit of charisma from her father – intoned that “at the end of the day” President Obama is “not all that bent out of shape” if gas prices are high because he and “his environmental friends” think that will force alternative forms of energy. It was essentially the same baseless claim Bill O’Reilly made recently. Neither of them offered a lick of proof.
Nor did Bozell need any. He laughably attacked the rest of the media for being biased, instead, while echoing the same charges. “What happened to the news media here? …They want higher gas prices because they want it to be a disincentive because they don’t like this kind of energy.”
Then after somehow psychically arriving at the state of the Obama administration’s mindset, Bozell said:
This president will say that he’s allowing drilling, but he just won’t give permits. Get this. Consider that oil production in this country was 10 million barrels a day when he took office. It’s down to 7 million barrels a day, and here the president is giving a speech today blaming Republicans for this. I mean, this should be an issue. He needs to be called out on this.
In reality, as Media Matters (who supplied the clip below) amply demonstrates, oil production has RISEN under President Obama. In fact, it’s at an eight-year high.
As McClatchy newspapers (via Truthout) reported: “U.S. demand for oil and refined products — including gasoline — is down sharply from last year, so much that United States has actually become a net exporter of gasoline, unable to consume all that it makes.”
The Truthout article makes a number of excellent points about the factors affecting the price of gas – which somehow “media bias expert” Bozell overlooked – with Cheney’s help. Sounding like a junior high student reading a memorized script, she said, “Don’t you just feel sometimes, Brent, like you’re banging your head against the wall?”
We know the feeling, Liz.
(3/7/20 Update - video is no longer available)
Typical right-wing attitude: The Dems are responsible whether they control the White House and/or Congress; the Dems are responsible when the GOPers control the White House and/or Congress.
Brent Bozo (&/or the MRC) has been spending $ sending out promoted tweets (What’s up with that?) that challenge tweeps to hold the MSM accountable to the truth. Several days ago I tweeted back asking how he could possibly even think about honesty in the media when he appears so regularly on Fox News.
I let you all know if I ever get a response.
With all my love
Aunty Em
Brent Bozo (&/or the MRC) has been spending $ sending out promoted tweets (What’s up with that?) that challenge tweeps to hold the MSM accountable to the truth. Several days ago I tweeted back asking how he could possibly even think about honesty in the media when he appears so regularly on Fox News.
I let you all know if I ever get a response.
With all my love
Aunty Em
Gotta love Bozell and these other rightwingnut idiots: they claim to be “confused” over the lower unemployment rate {an ACTUAL, verifiable number} . . . but will willingly pull numbers out of their ass to justify more oil drilling . . .
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I’m pretty left-wing as they come and had no problem bashing Dubya for his numerous shortcomings but I knew then (as I know now) that the President does NOT affect the price of gas at the pump. Yes. IF the President orders a release of oil and gas from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, then he can affect the price in the very short term. (If the kind of saber-rattling we’ve been hearing from many of the neocon GOPers were to continue—even after a COMPLETE and TOTAL draining of the SPR—the price of gas at the pump would still skyrocket and the US would have absolutely no back-up. Even as it is, our SPR would only carry us through 1 MONTH. The DOE website says there’s about 696 million barrels of oil in the SPR. And the US uses about 20 millions barrels of oil per day. According to the CIA Factbook, America uses in a single day the entire daily output of Saudi Arabia and Russia. And the SPR—at its present level—would take require EIGHT days production of the top FIFTY oil producers to refill.)
Then again, this IS Faux bobbleheads doing all this talking, and we all know that Faux is to the facts what Dracula is to a cross.
Could it have something to do with the fact that high gas prices are costing THEM money? Big Guvmint is A- OK when it takes care of their pockets. Hypocrites.
And of course, hypocrisy is FINE when attacking our President.
