Maybe not exactly, but at an event today the President was asked about prices at the pump and what he can do to lower them. The poor guy who asked the question was treated to a patronizing, mendacious lecture…

Some of what came out of Obama’s mouth is defensible. In fact, it’s true that when demand for a commodity or good goes up, prices will generally go up.

Unless, of course, supply goes up. Rising supply can mitigate or neutralize rising demand. And in fact, when demand goes up – which in the case of oil is the general state of things and must be planned for – it can be argued one of the president’s responsibilities is to do what he can to facilitate an increased supply.

This is, of course, what most presidents have made it a point to do over the years. It led to the embarrassing spectacle of Obama’s precedessor sending diplomats to Riyadh in 2008 to beg the Saudis to increase oil production, and then when that didn’t happen making what turned out to be a feint toward increasing domestic drilling (which actually worked to an extent, along with a crash of the U.S. economy).

Obama has done nothing in pursuit of that responsibility, save for attempting to take credit for his predecessors’ decisions which had oil production in the Gulf of Mexico peaking in May of last year. The president acts as though supply can’t be increased, at a time when study after study shows America has hydrocarbon resources which dwarf the rest of the world. He continues to tell the lie about 25 percent of the world’s oil and two percent of its reserves and he offers the absolutely useless advice that a guy who’s hard-up for cash as a result of fuel prices should buy a new car.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that the reaction to that mindless, insensitive performance from people who are actually engaged in the economy is less than sanguine. Take, for example, Jim Adams, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association and one of Obama’s fiercest critics on energy…

“Last night, President Obama argued that a government shutdown would hit average Americans with unnecessary hardships. Gulf workers know this all too well; Obama’s government has shut down oil exploration for nearly a year. But I guess the tens of thousands of Americans working to fuel this country’s energy needs don’t count.

“Nor apparently do the millions of American’s who are struggling with skyrocketing gas prices. Petroleum supplies 94 percent of our country’s transportation needs. At $4 a  gallon, everything trucked — like groceries — will become increasingly more expensive.”

Adams also threw this one out: “While feigning to care for the electorate, the president isn’t fooling anyone with his hypocritical rhetoric.”