Oil prices kept falling yesterday as the October crude contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped $2.14 to settle at $61.66 a barrel, which is the lowest price for a front-month crude contract in six months. A couple of weeks ago, Pejman Yousefzadeh wrote this TCS Daily op-ed in which he observed that, despite such declining prices, the Bill O’Reilly-type claims of manipulation of oil markets continue to persist.
As if on cue, this NewsBusters post reports on a recent installment of the CNN show, “The Situation Room,” in which CNN reporter Bill Schneider speculated ominously that the current decrease in energy prices has been timed to help Republicans in the midterm elections:

“The drop in prices may last a couple of months, long enough to get through the November election. Could that be what the oil companies want?”

Schneider’s observation was then “buttressed” with the insight of one Tyson Slocum, a “consumer advocate:”

“Eighty-one percent of their money goes to members of the Republican Party. I cannot say for sure whether or not they are influencing prices to assure that outcome, but it is, I think, more than just a coincidence that we’re seeing an easing of prices at a time of running up to a very, very important election.”

That’s a helluva consumer advocate who argues that lower prices for consumers is a dark conspiracy of the Republican Party and big energy companies. Does that mean that the far lower energy prices that existed in the run-up to the 2000 election were the result of an equally dark conspiracy of the Democratic Party and big energy companies?