Nothing will focus the attention of voters on Obama's failed energy policies like the current rise in gas prices. The White House can spin it all they want, but when voters start really feeling the pinch from high fuel costs, they are going to start asking questions.

Fox News:

Nationally, gas prices are $3.53 a gallon, up 25 cents since Jan. 1, and likely headed to $4.25 a gallon by late April. Republicans have demanded more oil production at home, as well as building the Keystone XL pipeline across the middle of the U.S. to allow oil from Canada to reach Texas refineries.

Obama rejected the plan, but one of his spokesmen, Robert Gibbs, said the president is looking to increase domestic energy production.

"Just on Friday, the Department of Interior issued permits that will expand our exploration in the Arctic. The president has increased our fuel efficiency and energy efficiency standards so we do use less energy, which will help drive down the price," Gibbs said. "Our domestic oil production is at an eight-year high, and our use of foreign oil is at a 16-year low. So we're making progress."

But John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil and founder of Citizens for Affordable Energy, told Fox News that oil production today is only 7 million barrels per day when it used to be 10 million per day. 

Hofmeister warned that the global economy is in "the crosshairs" of a precarious situation in which China is growing its demand for oil each year by millions of barrels per day and turmoil in the Middle East is creating "some of the most unpredictable, volatile, geopolitical situations" in the world. 

Global oil demand, meanwhile, is expected to increase by another 1.5 percent to 89.25 million barrels a day in 2012, according to the Energy Information Administration.

"The failure of the United States of America, the world's largest consumer, to adopt government policies to enable domestic production to increase and meet these conditions has been nil, nada, nothing, and that is unfortunate for American consumers," Hofmeister told Fox News.

The dishonesty of the White House is appalling. Hofmeister added:

"We know where the oil is but the government has to allow the companies to get the oil," he said, charging the Obama administration with being "anti-drilling," as demonstrated by the moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico following the BP spill in 2010.

You can't pander to the environmental lobby and drill everywhere possible at the same time. Obama has chosen environmental scare mongering and hysteria over sound, reasonable oil policy.

This is going to cost Obama in November. And if Israel or the US attacks Iran, there are some analysts who believe oil will shoot up to several hundred dollars bbl, doubling the price of gasoline and heating oil. That will likely cause the US economy to slip back into a recession. If that happens, the GOP could run Donald Duck and Obama would have a hard time winning.