It’s called lying through omission, I suppose, or lying through spin.
I don’t particularly care if gas prices are high or low—that’s not the point here. But gas prices are not at “record highs”, although I do understand the liberal media’s glee at reporting that they are or even could be, because they think people will blame their arch nemesis President George Bush for that. (So much for their previous spin that the Iraq war was all about “cheap gas”!).
The record was actually set in 1981 if you take inflation into account, which we do for every other thing. For those who forget, 1981 was when Jimmy Carter, liberal Democrat, was ending his run as the worst President in U.S. history.
And I suspect the same thing is in play here in Canada, where instead of just blaming George Bush and by extension Prime Minister Harper, because they always cast him as, and I quote, a “Bush bootlicker”, liberal Canadians and their media choose to also cast blame on the whole notion of nasty free markets and that awful capitalism, and call for yummy government price controls and regulations! That whole “supply ‘n demand” thing is so stupid! Of course they take no personal responsibility for the absolute record demand levels for gas.
The great NewsBusters blog finds some examples of liberal media perfidy on the subject:
Here We Go Again: Inane Hype for ‘Record High’ Gas When Price Lower than in 1981
Posted by Brent Baker on May 14, 2007 – 21:03.
As another summer driving season approaches, media outlets cannot resist again hyping dire stories about the supposed “record high” price of a gallon of gas when, adjusted for inflation, the current $3.10 average for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline is still lower than in 1981. ABC was out front Monday night with the fallacious reporting. World News anchor Charles Gibson teased up top, “Record prices: Gasoline across the nation hits an all-time high, a record price, before the summer even begins.” With “Record High” on screen, Gibson relied on new numbers from the Energy Information Administration as he introduced the subsequent story by asserting that “a gallon of gas has never been more expensive than right now. The government announced this afternoon that the average price of regular gas is $3.10 a gallon.” Reporter John Berman also cited the “record high” price before marveling at how demand is rising: “Despite the agony, for the most part, we haven’t changed our actions. Demand for gas is actually up one percent from this time last year…”
The headline over a Monday afternoon article on USA Today’s Web site, which matched stories all over the Web from wire services and television news sites, declared: “Gasoline prices top post-Katrina record.” But USA Today reporter Barbara Hagenbaugh at least noted that “prices are still below the all-time high when adjusted for inflation, $3.223 in today’s dollars set March 1981, according to the Energy Department.”
Earlier in her story, Hagenbaugh reported the $3.10 average national pump price “tops the old record of $3.07 set in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina disrupted refinery operations and oil production along the Gulf Coast, the EIA said.” It’s silly, however, to see the current $3.10 as higher than the September of 2005 price of $3.07 since the inflation rate over the past 20 months has certainly exceeded three cents on three dollars.
[…]
Meanwhile, the liberal media, both here and there, routinely ignore, on purpose, the REAL record-breaking stock exchanges. They’ll get right on that if or when they start to fall… unless a liberal is in office at that point…
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