OBAMA RESPONSIBLE FOR HIGH GAS PRICES?

Today, I saw an ad from the McCain campaign that states that high gas prices are because of Sen. Barack Obama. John McCain is ready to drill for oil and solve our dependency on foreign oil! Sen. Barack Obama is against off-shore drilling and THAT IS WHY GAS PRICES ARE HIGH!

I thought I remember John McCain saying that Obama's inexperience and lack of time in the Senate is why I should vote for John McCain. But now he tells me that in the short time Obama has been in the Senate he has single handed stopped all off shore drilling and driven the price up.

HUH????

I seem to remember that in 2003, Senator John McCain voted AGAINST off shore drilling. That was a full year before Senator Obama ever held the office of junior Senator from Illinois. In fact, John McCain has opposed off shore drilling for his entire 30 years in Washington. So how does he justify blaming this on Sen. Obama?

This is even more incredible when you realize that even if we authorized off shore drilling today, it would be 5 to 10 years before we saw any of that oil. And when that oil finally is pumped, it will be put on the world market instead of being kept to "reduce America's dependence on foreign oil." (Which is also an idea that Sen. John McCain has publicly supported..) The dirty little secret that conservatives would like you to forget is that all American oil is put on the world market. So even today at a time that we scream about the amount of foreign oil we import, we don't like to remember that we also export US oil to other countries. (It's called a Global Economy...for good or bad.) So when oil companies do get this oil, we will still be bidding for it on an open market against China & India.


A discussion on off shore drilling is legitimate. I don't think it will do nearly as much to reduce oil imports as people say, but it is a discussion that should be had. It is not legitimate to blame Senator Obama for the problem as the McCain ad does.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS?