Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the increase in gasoline prices was not beyond the control of a president, but 89 percent said this administration did not have a plan to deal with the problem. ~The New York Times

On a visceral level, it must be satisfying to blame Dobleve for high gas prices. Not a big fan of the man myself, I would be pleased to find something else to pin on him, but, alas, this time we cannot hold him responsible. Certainly, loose talk about “all options” being on the table vis-a-vis Iran in answer to questions about nuking that country does not help settle the oil market, and his comments on that topic alone account for some of the recent spikes in crude oil prices. However, that has relatively little to do with the price of gasoline right now. I suppose people are right to say Mr. Bush doesn’t have a plan. How can one have a plan to fix something that is completely beyond his reach? For his next trick, he will abolish tyranny. Oh, wait, he tried that one already, and the results were less than promising.

If Mr. Bush wanted to get “in control” of gas prices, he would have to become Nixon redivivus imposing price controls and infuriatingly lowering the speed limit to 55 mph again. Never mind that presidents don’t actually have the proper legal authority to do those things (just as Nixon did not have the authority)–if you can scrap the Fourth Amendment and the separation of powers, you can pretty much do what you like with economic regulations, too. But, legality and common sense aside for a moment, I don’t think Mr. Bush wants to do something that would guarantee having Trumanesque approval ratings. If 66% think he can do something to “fix” huge structural problems of supply, what exactly is it they think this solution is?