CNN's Cafferty: Oil Companies Lowering Gas Prices to Help Republicans?

USA Today reported that gasoline prices could be closer to $2 a gallon by Thanksgiving. The paper sites the end of the summer driving season and decreased demand as causes for this predicted decline. Not surprisingly, CNN’s Jack Cafferty sees something more sinister at work here. Before his daily Cafferty File segment on ‘The Situation Room’ Wednesday afternoon, substitute anchor John King and news reader Zain Verjee discussed this report and cheered on lower gas prices as good news. Cafferty then spouted off the old liberal conspiracy theory connecting Republicans and Big Oil:

Jack Cafferty: "You know, if you were a real cynic, you could also wonder if the oil companies might not be pulling the price of gas down to help the Republicans get re-elected in the midterm elections a couple of months away."

Cafferty then went on to his question of the day: Who do you believe when it comes to whether Iraq has descended into a civil war? Again, it should come as no surprise, that Cafferty was just as cynical on that issue as he was about the falling gas prices:

Cafferty: "Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, says there’s no civil war in Iraq, and furthermore there never will be. This is the leader of a government, in a country where the Shia and Sunnis have been fighting and killing each other for hundreds of years. You know, sort of like a civil war...When he was asked over this past weekend how soon American forces would be leaving, he said, within a year, maybe sooner. I’ll have whatever he’s having."

Cafferty ended the segment the way he started it, with a sardonic view on falling gas prices:

Cafferty: "The interesting thing to watch on that story about gas prices is what happens to them right after the midterms, John."

King: "Always the cynic, Jack Cafferty. We’ll check back in a little bit later. Thank you, Jack."