(U.S. Coast Guard)

Republican politicians like to take a few key angles on the basic theme of "drill, baby, drill." First off, prices should be rock bottom at all times, because it is the God-given right of Americans to use the maximum possible quantity of fossil fuels, the retail cost of which should therefore not reflect their true costs. Second, the way to keep prices at rock bottom is through the aforementioned "drill, baby, drill" strategy. Third, President Obama is a wild-eyed environmentalist-socialist who is coming between Americans and their God-given right to more oil, and therefore everything is his fault.

That means it would be inconvenient for Republicans to have to acknowledge that:



After declining to levels not seen since the 1940s, U.S. crude production began rising again in 2009. Drilling rigs have rushed into the nation's oil fields, suggesting a surge in domestic crude is on the horizon. The number of rigs in U.S. oil fields has more than quad­rupled in the past three years to 1,272, according to the Baker Hughes rig count. Including those in natural gas fields, the United States now has more rigs at work than the entire rest of the world.

So ... Obama isn't keeping a stranglehold on domestic oil production in order to appease environmentalists and deny Americans the $10-a-tank gas they deserve? And yet despite the quadrupling of rigs in U.S. oil fields, gas prices are still going up? That sounds like the recipe for this being information that Republican politicians are going to universally ignore, as they've been ignoring it . And meanwhile the alleged promise of drilling keeps us on an unsustainable, harmful path.