BrianGarst.com

According to a new Gallop poll, 42% percent of Americans admit to being dumber than a rock. Er, I mean, 42% of Americans think there is a conspiracy behind the gas price drop.

It’s not just the bloggers suggesting that the 66-cent drop in the average pump price over the past seven weeks to $2.38 per gallon is thanks to the collusion of former oilmen President Bush and Vice President Cheney and their Big Oil buddies. (Bloggers advancing this theory include Long Delayed Echoes, NH Insider, Various Miseries, and The “What Do I Know Grit.”) A Gallup Poll found that 42 percent of the public thinks the Bush administration is deliberately manipulating the price. As plausible as that scenario apparently seems, energy analysts nevertheless deem it impossible.

The wave of ignorance that has swept over this country, thanks to massive failures in the media to report based on rationality instead of political hysteria, would be laughable if it weren’t so depressingly dangerous. When reporters label massive market conspiracies to manipulate prices for a commodity where no one has the market power to much effect the price of trading as “plausible” instead of asinine, it’s little surprise that the public is this ignorant.

It certainly raises the question, plausible to whom? Five year olds? In a sane world, that’s what one would think. Apparently, however, it’s plausible to all known victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome. All 42% of them.