The group some label the conservative counterpart to MoveOn.org is using the Web to hit House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, for underestimating the cost of a gallon of gas during an interview last week with CNN's Larry King.
During the interview, Pelosi says gasoline increased threefold since President Bush took office and has risen to $2.56 a gallon. However, gasoline costs $3.60 per gallon nationally, according the Department of Energy. The conservative group Freedom's Watch took that snippet from the interview and is circulating it online via YouTube. So far it's got nearly 6,000 views and a pick up on the site RedState.org.
Politicians walk a careful line to ensure they don't appear out of touch with voters. Failed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani came under fire during his campaign for underestimating the cost of a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. Former president George H.W. Bush came under fire for being impressed with a long-implemented grocery store item scanner.
"When the Speaker of the House can't remember what a gallon of gas costs, it suggests she is painfully out of touch," Freedom's Watch spokesman Ed Patru told The Washington Times. "We don't know whether she's oblivious to the price of gas or had a momentary lapse in the middle of an interview with Larry King. … But what we do know is this Congress promised it had a plan to lower gas prices, gas prices have gone up about a $1.25 since she's been Speaker and the only substantive thing this Congress has done on the issue is to pass an energy bill that raises energy costs."
Update: A spokesman for Pelosi writes in to explain what happened.
"That Freedom's Watch video is obviously edited to take it out of context," wrote Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly. "Of course she knows the price of gas. She just misspoke. That is clear from her response to Larry King, when he said $3.50, she replied, '$3.50, oh, down six cents. It's higher where I'm from in California, sad to say.' Clearly, she thought she had said $3.56."
You can watch the group's video below:
— Carrie Sheffield, Web editor, The Washington Times
Comments (7)
Ho hummmmmmm. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Posted by IK | April 30, 2008 10:23 PM
Gas:
Please work with Bush on relief being developed at home country, why did Congress stop that request to go forward?
Posted by jeanette banning | May 1, 2008 2:14 AM
Politics must be a degenerative illness. It degenerates thinking to politics as a solution. A single variable does not control complex systems. President Bush or Nancy Pelosi are not single control parameters for the price of oil any more than carbon dioxide can control the change in climate. Bargaining is a human made system of how much people are willing to pay for a constant supply of energy with a growing demand. For the prices to remain stable, either you increase the supply or decrease the demand. Emission caps act to increase demand because of the additional power required for filtering. Prohibiting local access to additional supplies forces us to rely on a constant supply from outside sources which we have no control over. Using the supply to increase supply through biofuels is one solution as long as it doesn't interrupt a survival chain in which we have modified our physical environment to support a growing population that is creating the increased demand. Oops! The government just saw an opportunity to increase supplies while easing their conscience on a feel good global warming state of fear. It was a political decision nothing deeper. Does immigration ring a bell? Like I said it must be degenerative.
Posted by Larry Stone | May 1, 2008 3:22 AM
I live and vote in San Francisco and I will not vote for Ms. Pelosi in the next election cycle because of her being out of touch with the ethonol problems, the food cost problems, the immigration problems and our security debacle of which she is a leader. I will vote for Cindy just to get this dufuss out of office.
Posted by Ron Nord | May 1, 2008 1:57 PM
I just saw this on foolocracy.com.
It makes you wonder if any of these politicians know what its like to live in the real world.
Posted by Ray Smithers | May 1, 2008 7:38 PM
Stupid is as stupid does.
Good old Nancy knows how to get elected. Her family has been in politics for three generations. Nancy doesn't know much else. ;_(
She doesn't know much about energy, stock markets, currencies, food supplies, economics, national security, funding for Social Security, and much more. Her mind is focused on getting ELECTED!
Posted by Pat | May 1, 2008 7:56 PM
Gasoline would be cheaper if we produced more oil and natural gas from our OWN known oil reserves and proven fields.
Posted by Anonymous | May 1, 2008 8:05 PM