SOUNDING OFF:

Gas prices are headed down. Have you noticed? Just a couple of weeks ago gas cost about $4.80 per gallon for regular. Now we’re flirting with $4.20. Why? The Democrats haven’t been able to repeal the laws of supply and demand. Americans are driving less, are using less gas and the price is headed downward. Very predictable. And I think it’s a bad thing.

We’ve all heard about the lab experiment where a frog is dropped into a pan of boiling water. As expected, the frog immediately hops back out. But place the same frog into a pan of lukewarm water and then slowly raise the temperature. The frog will sit there and contentedly cook as the heat increases to the boiling point.

So it often is with people. Remember when gas first crossed the $1 per gallon barrier? We all grew indignant. And then we got used to it. Then gas passed $1.50, and then $2, and then $2.50. Same result each time. We screamed and shouted for a while, and then grew complacent.

Just last January as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ascended her shiny throne, she commented that a gallon of gas had reached a then all-time high of $3.07. She blamed high gas prices on President George W. Bush, of course, and promised she and her fellow Democrats would “do something” about it.

It appears she has, as the recent run up in prices will attest.

But now I fear we’re headed down the same old pathway as gas prices retreat to possibly less than four bucks a gallon. The recent barrage of calls, faxes and e-mails to members of Congress from millions of Americans to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and permit offshore drilling (a recent poll tells us 71% percent of us want just that) may diminish in both number and volume as we once again accept the apparently inevitable. I certainly hope not. I hope gas prices remain high so we keep the pressure on. We’re shipping off billions of dollars for oil to people who want to kill us when we have enough here at home to serve our needs for the next 100 years.

Let’s go get it.

Oh, wait a minute! Pelosi and her fellow Democrats won’t permit a vote to allow that because the environmental whacko lobby keeps them financially propped up. And Barack Obama suggests the solution is for you to keep your tires properly inflated and your car properly tuned, and the high gas price problem will be solved, which is perhaps the single dumbest thing a politician has ever said.

Remember that the next time you fill up. Remember that when you enter the voting booth in November.

CHUCK CASSITY lives in Costa Mesa.