BEAR IN MIND...

President Barack Obama campaigned on energy issues on Wednesday, visiting a handful of oil wellheads on Federal land in New Mexico and a solar installation in Boulder City, Nevada.

The subtext of this Obama campaign is public unhappiness with the price of gasoline and the hypocritical attacks on him over this issue by his Republican opponents. The fact is that there is only one thing Obama could have done to bring down oil prices, and that would have been to veto the National Defense Authorization Act until Congress took back out the provisions for crippling sanctions on Iran. Republicans back these sanctions to the hilt, which is why it is dishonest of them to attack Obama on high gas prices.

Juan Cole at Informed Comment.