The Media Research Center’s Joseph Vazquez huffed in a Nov. 4 post:
New York Times economist Paul Krugman claimed President Joe Biden has no control over the rise in gas prices. This, of course, comes after Krugman pilloried former President Donald Trump a year earlier for allegedly exercising the same control he said Biden didn’t have.
Krugman took to Twitter to try to explain away the abysmal election results for Democrats Tuesday in an attempt to protect Biden: “One issue that seems to have influenced voters Tuesday was the price of gasoline — over which Biden has no control.”
Vazquez went on to cite self-proclaimed environmentalist (though more of a dubious contrarian and, thus, a right-wing favorite) Michael Schellenberger as saying that Biden “may open the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower prices.” Never mind, of course, that it is true that Biden has very little direct control over oil prices
Well, Biden tap the SPR later that month — and the MRC rushed to dismiss the action as ineffective. Nicholas Fondacaro grumbled in a Nov. 23 post:
During ABC’s World News Tonight on Tuesday, anchor David Muir and congressional correspondent Rachel Scott were President Biden’s personal cheer team as they praised him for releasing 50 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserves; after he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do it. Meanwhile, on the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News, they warned it was just a “drop in the bucket” and would be used up in less than three days.
Fondacaro censored the fact that the SPR release was coordinated with releases from other countries to have a greater impact on prices.
It’s as if the MRC will criticize Biden no matter what he does, and that perhaps the Biden White House should stop trying to please such constant bad-faith critics whose support it will never win because they are more about partisan politics than helping the country.