CNN's Cafferty Vs. Gergen on Bush's Role in Oil Prices

The roundtable segment of Tuesday's The Situation Room offered CNN viewers opposite takes on the Bush administration's culpability in the rise of oil prices with Jack Cafferty and David Gergen on opposite ends. Cafferty, who has a history of blaming high oil prices on President Bush, argued that the administration's "idea of an energy policy is to put Dick Cheney in a closed, locked room out of sight of the public with some guys from Enron and some oil company guys, hammer out some kind of a deal, and then sit back and watch oil prices go from $28 when Bush was inaugurated to $111 now."

But Gergen later jumped into the discussion to explain the true origin of oil prices: "I think it's wrong to argue or suggest that somehow the oil companies have been manipulating these prices upward. These prices have not been, you know, rising sky high because of the Bush administration. They've been rising sky high because world demand is up so significantly."

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Tuesday April 1 The Situation Room on CNN:

JOHN KING: So what can the candidates do, if anything, as President, about skyrocketing oil and gas prices? ... Jack, Obama, at the end of Suzanne's piece there, being honest, saying there's a lot we can debate, a lot we can think about and talk about, but not much I could do today, tomorrow, or next week or month for you.

JACK CAFFERTY: Well, you know, it's refreshing to hear an honest comment out of a politician's mouth. These hearings are a periodic public display bordering on a carnival, where these hypocritical members of the United States government drag these oil executives in front of them and castigate them for their obscene profits. I'm not defending their profits, but this country hasn't had a coherent energy policy probably since before the Arab oil embargo in 1973. These days, the idea of an energy policy is to put Dick Cheney in a closed, locked room out of sight of the public with some guys from Enron and some oil company guys, hammer out some kind of a deal, and then sit back and watch oil prices go from $28 when Bush was inaugurated to $111 now. Twice in the last year, the House has voted to roll back those tax breaks for the oil companies and use the money to develop alternative forms of energy. Twice that bill has failed to get through the Senate because the Republicans in the Senate are blocking it, because they don't want to offend their buddies in the oil industry. This is disingenuous, at the least, and highly hypocritical at the most, for these, for these people to pose at these hearings and pretend with all this hand-wringing to be so concerned. They've done nothing.
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DAVID GERGEN: But if I may just add one coda to the conversation about oil. Look, I think there have been some huge profits that the oil companies have experienced and that need to be, you know, they need to pay their taxes and to pay their fair share. But I think it's wrong to argue or suggest that somehow the oil companies have been manipulating these prices upward. These prices have not been, you know, rising sky high because of the Bush administration. They've been rising sky high because world demand is up so significantly. It's skyrocketing in places like China and India. And we're living in a new world. And it's one in which, if we're going to be realistic about our place as a superpower, we've got to do some very tough things. And I have to tell you, none of the candidates is yet facing up in a realistic way to the kind of tough choices we face ahead, whether we're going to do nuclear power or whether we're going to put prices on gasoline and carbon, whether we're going to do some things that are going to really pinch.