You have to hand it to Bill Frist and Denny Hastert for their sense of both political theater and their political survival skills. The Leopold and Loeb (or is it Laurel and Hardy?) of the 109th Congress have gotten together and asked the Bush Administration to… wait for it… investigate why gasoline prices are so high these days. It’s not as if we don’t know the answer. (1) In the short run, Bush foreign policy disasters have caused extremely tense international relations, particularly in the oil rich Middle East (a couple of countries named “Iraq” and “Iran” come to mind). Add disastrously stupid handling of relations with other big U.S. oil suppliers like Venezuela and Mexico, and higher prices amidst fears of major supply shocks are not hard to fathom. (2) In the long run, as China and India industrialize, their combined populations, representing 40% of the world’s population and 8 times our own, increases demand on existing petroleum supplies, automatically.

But leave it to Frist and Hastert to blame… “price gouging.” As if the entire existence of the American oil industry weren’t about getting the government to keep it artificially competitive through subsidizing free flowing supplies (our “defense budget”), making sure that insanely stupid regional planning, tax incentives and so forth continue to encourage suburban sprawl so that oil demand here stays nice and high, making sure that “conservation” remains a dirty word, and so forth. Anyway, surprise, surprise, oil profits are really high, and as a leading client of the Republican Party, you’d think the Republican leaders would be happy about that… and of course, they are.

But bid’ness is bid’ness, and right now, with Congressional mid-term elections coming up in just over five months, and the President’s approval rating at its nadir (for this President) with little sign of rebounding, Hastert and Frist have decided to “do something.” And what a surprise as to what it is they chose!

I recall seeing a correlation of Presidential popularity on a chart against oil prices… this study estimates a .73 correlation, or literally half of Bush’s unpopularity can be attributed to gasoline prices alone… Let’s face it… Hastert and Frist aren’t stupid… craven, certainly; evil, perhaps. But not stupid. So they know that the President’s low numbers– fueled (as it were) by the price of fuel– may well result in serious Congressional losses in November, up to and including (though unlikely) the loss of control of one or both Houses of Congress…

Hence… the current request that the Bush Adminsitration study why gasoline prices are higher. Kind of like hiring Jack the Ripper as your medical examiner, but hey, they’ve gotten away with everything else, right?