The five biggest whoppers. And those are just the biggest ones.

[Update a couple minutes later]

“We’re focused on production.”

Fact: While production is up under Obama, this has nothing to do with his policies, but is the result of permits and private industry efforts that began long before Obama occupied the White House.

Obama has chosen almost always to limit production. He canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast.

His administration also has been slow-walking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, approving far fewer while stretching out review times, according to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permit Index. The Energy Dept. says Gulf oil output will be down 17% by the end of 2013, compared with the start of 2011. Swift Energy President Bruce Vincent is right to say Obama has “done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting.”

And this is worthy of comment:

Obama said in his speech that Americans aren’t stupid. He’s right about that, which is why most are giving his energy policy a thumbs down.

Actually, it’s not clear that he’s right about that. The fact that he was elected president would seem to be evidence against the proposition.

[Update a few minutes later]

Rising gas prices: all part of Obama’s plan? All you had to do was to listen to what he was saying in the 2008 campaign.

While this position may be slightly unfair to the President (Mr. Chu was not yet in the Administration at the time he made the remarks, so any link between it and administration policy is tenuous), the quote devastatingly reveals just how tone-deaf and myopic white-collar, progressive intellectualism can be. The delusion that jacking up energy prices is part of a “good government” agenda is one of the pieces of insanity that keeps the blue intelligentsia from consolidating its position as a natural governing class.

More surprising here is that Politico is jumping on the bandwagon—although it notes that Chu’s remarks have been detrimental to Obama, the piece laments that the goal of raising gas prices doesn’t get the sympathetic attention it obviously deserves, given the support of numerous “experts.” With thinking like this dominating media and intellectual circles, it’s little wonder that the mainstream media is perceived as elitist and out of touch.

I disagree that the link between Chu’s remark and policy is “tenuous” at all. He was appointed precisely because he believes such nonsense. And in this case at least, the perception is the reality.