His lips were moving

             As a mediator I have to listen to people make all sorts of claims concerning why they did what they did. Most of the time what they have to say is either correct or it’s patently wrong and we resolve the issue and go on from there until we ultimately reach a solution. So I’ve learned to listen, and to assure myself that the claim made is at least reasonably correct…the only trouble with developing this skill is that I now find myself applying it to general conversation and to the utterances of politicians. (Can you see where this is going?)

           

            Last week the President gave a major energy policy speech at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland, whoever wrote the speech for him didn’t waste time by checking facts and the President compounded the errors contained in his speech by some of his responses to questions. The one answer that struck me the most was his claim that he had quadrupled the number of drilling rigs in operation during his administration. 

Other reports I’ve seen contradict that assertion so it was an easy web search to find that there is a on line reporting service that tracks well and drilling sites. (If you are interested it’s the Baker-Hughes Rig Report) There are just shy of 2,000 drilling rigs in operation in the country so for him to have increased the number of rigs fourfold in the past four years there had to have only 500 at some point since 2008.

            The last time there were 500 rigs in operation was in the mid 1990’s and in fact the report shows that not only have the number of rigs been declining the only new ones are located on private land, not on any area controlled by the government. It's one thing for a politician to speak untruthfully it a much worse thing for him to do so while giving a "major policy speach".