Will John Q. Public Ever Connect the Dots?

So, the latest polls once again show that support for the current White House criminal continues to drop. To blame? At least according to this source, higher gas prices. I'm hearing a lot of bellyaching from the other side of the aisle that the policies of the current (mal)adminsitration cannot be blamed. Now, I readily admit that I am no economist, but as Liz showed with her post the other day, No Virginia, There Isn't a Gas Shortage, the availability of crude is not really the issue. Nor, I think, is it solely the fact that Big Oil is keeping prices artificially high. And yes, there is rapid economic growth in China and India that is keeping demand quite high. But c'mon folks, let's face it, probably the single biggest factor affecting the price of crude these days is regional instability in the Middle East. And financial markets, where the price of crude is set on a daily basis, hate instability.

Iraq is in tatters and oil output has not returned to pre-invasion levels. One must recall that even pre-invasion, Iraq was not pumping out oil at capacity, since its oil sales were controled under the UN Oil-For-Food program. The world has not enjoyed (if that's a good word to use) full oil production from Iraq since before the 1993 Persian Gulf War.

Then, of course, there is the whole Iran affair. Sure, Iran is pumping now, but what with all the saber rattling and rumors flying that the criminal in the White House is on the verge of nuking the country, who knows how long the spigot will remain open.

So, John Q. Public sits out there and grouses about the $50 or $60 price tag to fill his Ford Expedition, and he seems to sense in some vague way that the gubment ought to be able to do something about it, although what he cannot exactly say. Does it ever occur to John Q. Public that if the US had even a semi-sane foreign policy, this shit might not be happening, or at least not to this extent? No, I don't think so.

Now, it makes me want to puke when I hear Republicans say that these problems affecting gaoline prices were years in the making, that the Democrats are to blame for all the environmental restrictions, that we need to drill in ANWR, that the soaring prices cannot be laid at the feet of the criminal in the White House. Well, excuuuuuse me, but I'd like them to name me one other person who has almost single-handedly created the sort of insane clusterfuck we've got going on right now in the Middle East.

Someone put me straight: am I right or wrong? Or some of both?