Profiles In Pandering

You know things are going bad for Congressional Republicans when editorials in the Wall Street Journal liken their behavior to that of the Democrats. Today's offering, titled Denny Pelosi (which is free to the unwashed masses), is a disheartening look at the knee-jerk GOP response to rising gas prices:

Few things are less becoming in a political party than desperation, as Republicans are now demonstrating as they panic over rising oil and gas prices. If blaming private industry for Congress's own energy mistakes is the best the GOP can do, no wonder its voters may sit out the November election.

Oil prices hit $75 a barrel last week, while gas has reached a national average of about $2.85 a gallon. The Republican response has been to put on Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi fright wigs [How about a Pelosi mask?] and shout about corporate greed and market manipulation. House Speaker Denny Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist fired off a letter to President Bush yesterday demanding the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department investigate "price fixing" and "gouging." Senator Arlen Specter wants to go further and impose stricter "antitrust" laws for oil companies, as well as a "windfall profits" tax. Mr. Hastert also delighted the class warriors in the press corps by lambasting recently retired Exxon CEO Lee Raymond's pay "unconscionable."

There's been unconscionable behavior all right, most of it on Capitol Hill. A decent portion of the latest run-up in gas prices -- and the entire cause of recent spot shortages -- is the direct result of the energy bill Congress passed last summer. That self-serving legislation handed Congress's friends in the ethanol lobby a mandate that forces drivers to use 7.5 billion gallons annually of that oxygenate by 2012.

At the same time, Congress refused to provide liability protection to the makers of MTBE, a rival oxygenate getting hit with lawsuits. So MTBE makers are leaving the market in a rush, while overstretched ethanol producers (despite their promises) are in no way equipped to compensate for the loss of MTBE in the fuel supply. Ethanol is also difficult to ship and store outside of the Midwest, which is causing supply headaches and spot gas shortages along the East Coast and Texas.

The editorial closes with a warning that Republicans have been hearing (and ignoring at their own peril) for years; trying to appear more liberal on issues will not only not help you win elections, it will almost certainly guarantee your defeat:

The last time the U.S. had a gasoline panic, in the wake of Katrina, some quick Bush Administration action and private ingenuity eased the problem in record time. Gasoline prices that had climbed above $3 a gallon quickly settled back closer to $2. Markets will make the same adjustments today if they are allowed to send price signals without Congress getting in the way. Republicans can blame business all they want for high prices, but sounding like liberal Democrats won't save them in November.

For the record, I wouldn't vote for Bill Frist for dog catcher in chief in 2008, to say nothing of considering him as the Republican candidate for President.

Update-- More on from Max Schulz at National Review Online:

Few things reveal the intellectual bankruptcy of Republicans in Washington 12 years after the Gingrich Revolution as much as the actions taken by congressional leaders and the White House in response to the recent hike in gasoline prices.

As prices have soared to more than $3 per gallon, the Republican establishment has fueled hysteria by rallying around the idea that the higher costs are the result of dark forces at work in the economy.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist sent a letter to President Bush Monday demanding that his administration get to the bottom of this outrage. Yes, they hurriedly offered, supply and demand are factors in the run-up in prices, especially growing demand in India and China. But the real problems, according to the top two Republicans on Capitol Hill, are things far more sinister: "price-fixing, collusion, gouging and other anti-competitive practices."

Mind you, these aren't the ramblings of backbenchers hungry for attention. Hastert's and Frist's letter represents the official thinking of the majority party in both houses of Congress. Its most shocking feature is a call for "Federal law enforcement agencies and regulators" to get involved, all in the interest of protecting consumers and, ahem, free markets.