Biden’s Closing Argument: Higher Energy Prices “No more drilling,” says the president in response to a global warmist in New York.By James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-closing-argument-higher-energy-prices-11667845918
It’s midterm campaign season and U.S. voters are clearly upset about the cost of energy. So it’s especially odd that just before Election Day President Joe Biden is emphasizing his opposition to cheap fuel. Perhaps voters can find cause for some modest hope in a CNN finding that many of Mr. Biden’s recent public statements are false.
As for the president’s promotion of energy scarcity, Haley Brown and Ben Kesslen report for the New York Post:
President Biden repeatedly said “no more drilling” and tripped onstage when he joined Gov. Kathy Hochul in Yonkers on Sunday in a last-ditch effort to help her try to stave off GOP challenger Lee Zeldin…
“No more drilling,” Biden snapped at a climate protester who was heckling him.
“There is no more drilling. I haven’t formed any new drilling,” Biden said.
A confused-sounding Biden tried to assuage the protester and return to his speech.
Whether he was confused or not, it wasn’t Mr. Biden’s only recent message of energy paucity. A Journal editorial notes:
Every so often President Biden blurts out what he really thinks, even if it’s politically or diplomatically embarrassing. He did it again Friday when he said his Administration will shut down coal plants across America…
Mr. Biden’s campaign remarks in Carlsbad, Calif., were supposed to be about the semiconductor bill and his “unity agenda.” But during a riff on Democrats’ tax and climate spending bill, he let slip that “we’re going to be shutting [coal] plants down all across America and having wind and solar.”
Those worried about the possibility of limited energy supply and therefore an expensive winter may cling to the hope that the President was speaking untruthfully, a not infrequent occurrence. Recently this column noted the valiant effort by the New York Times to frame numerous presidential falsehoods as an element of Mr. Biden’s grandfatherly charm.
Now from CNN of all places comes an acknowledgment that the President’s false claims are hardly confined to self-aggrandizing whoppers about his biography. It seems the fibs are embedded throughout his policy message as he seeks to help Democrats hold on to their congressional majorities. A CNN headline announces: “Fact check: Biden’s midterms message includes false and misleading claims.” The network’s Daniel Dale writes:
President Joe Biden has been back on the campaign trail, traveling in October and early November to deliver his pitch for electing Democrats in the midterm elections on Tuesday.
Biden’s pitch has included claims that are false, misleading or lacking important context.
This column is no fan of the “fact-checking” genre of opinion journalism and is especially skeptical when “fact-checkers” claim that a statement “lacks important context.” Such a claim is too often employed when conservatives make true statements that media outlets want to describe as false.
But even if one leaves aside opinionated arguments about context, Mr. Dale catalogs a range of recent Biden claims that are flatly untrue—on taxes, federal debt, Social Security, and other topics. And yes, gas prices are among those other topics. Mr. Dale writes:
…in an economic speech in New York last week, Biden said, “Today, the most common price of gas in America is $3.39 – down from over $5 when I took office.”
Biden’s claim that the most common gas price when he took office was more than $5 is not even close to accurate. The most common price for a gallon of regular gas on the day he was inaugurated, January 20, 2021, was $2.39, according to data provided to CNN by Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. In other words, Biden made it sound like gas prices had fallen significantly during his presidency when they had actually increased significantly.
Perhaps voters disturbed by Mr. Biden’s Sunday energy comments will cheer up when they realize that his pronouncements on this topic cannot be trusted.
Speaking of “fact-checkers,” in a surprising coincidence the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has also chosen this moment to drop in the digital file a similar laundry list of Biden falsehoods. Arriving after millions of Americans have already voted in the midterm elections—and just before many Democrats will likely begin a vigorous if quiet effort to guide Mr. Biden off stage— Mr. Kessler is out today with a “Bottomless Pinocchio for Biden.”
Is there perhaps some important context that should be added to the work of the “fact-checkers”?
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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”
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