The top story on the Washington Post's web page right now is titled
"Bush Orders Probe Into Gas Pricing" (title just changed slightly after I wrote this). If you read it, you'll find that George W. Bush has just realized - without any outside prodding or influence - that gas prices are too high and that the Departments of Energy and Justice should care about this, because oil/gas companies might be making too much money, and that the proper response to voters was
not sending them the new Hallmark card, "Congratulations on making more money than you can count (and remember who's your daddy)!"
(yes, I know there are other oil/gas price diaries; I'm posting this because nobody's done a "The Post coverage sucks" diary yet, and they're begging to be called out for it)
Only in the fourth paragraph is any kind of "mounting public pressure" described (but not in connection with any concerted movement, policy, or efforts, just angry people at gas pumps: "Driver angry! Driver SMASH!"). In paragraph twelve, Democrats are noticed, but just to be described briefly as "hammering Bush and his Republican colleagues" and that's
only, in the words of the Post (which decided this level of crapulent obfuscation required the attention of not one, not two, but
three reporters), because "[Democrats] hope to harness voter anger." Well, I guess it's all politics as usual, then.
NO mention is made of Democratic calls for investigations in past months.
NO mention is made of Ted Stevens (R-Bridge To Nowhere) and his sham hearings, at which he refused to swear in oil and gas executives so that their claims, while mind-bogglingly absurd, weren't technically perjury (h/t Think Progress).
NO mention is made of the impact higher gas prices have on the average American family.
NO mention is made of any specific Democrats, or Democratic proposals, though the reporters mention plenty of Republicans: Bush (of course); Administration flacks Scott McClellan and Dana Perino; Senators Elizabeth Dole (without mentioning whether her letter was as a senator, or as head of the NRSC), Arlen Specter, and Bill Frist; Representatives Dennis Hastert and Joe Barton; and representing the Administration again, AG Alberto Gonzales and FTC chair Deborah Platt Majoras.
NO mention is made of the predictions the Bush Administration made about how invading Iraq would put more oil on the market which have been woefully misguided (but if Jim Brady and Fred Hiatt keep it up, maybe we can go double-or-nothing in Iran, and Deborah Howell can whine about mean bloggers who point out the failure of Iraq to generate enough oil to pay for itself).
NO mention is made of how Bush's favored legislative solution, of giving money away to the oil/gas industry, somehow fails to reduce the cost of gas at the pump.
NO mention is made of the millions of dollars that oil/gas interests have dumped into Republican campaign coffers in return for all kinds of legislative largesse (Republicans are described as merely "traditionally more sympathetic to the pleas of Big Oil"), from tax breaks to subsidies to non-enforcement of numerous relevant laws.
In fact, the Post is SO determined to avoid giving Democrats any credit for policy or political influence on this issue that they have to quote a REPUBLICAN pollster about Exxon Mobil CEO Lee Raymond's multi-million-dollar benefit package.
I can't see how the Post has missed its real calling, and why they're letting Tony Snow beat them to a new job: shilling on the Bush payroll. Because for all practical purposes, they're already there.