On July 11, oil prices were over $147 a barrel, the highest they had ever been. Politicians and pundits were saying that we were heading toward even higher prices as demand from China and India ramped up.

On July 14, President Bush rescinded an Executive Order that kept us from drilling for the billions of barrels of oil we already know we have. He urged Congress to lift its law against domestic drilling as well. Democrats said that doing so would have no effect since we could get that oil anyhow and besides what the President did was merely “symbolic” and didn’t matter.

Boy were they wrong.

Oil today is down to $124 a barrel and has been in freefall since President lifted his executive order and a few Republicans got serious about increasing the domestic supply. To demonstrate how remarkable this price drop has been, it took from May 8th to July 11 for oil to go from $124 to $147, over two months. It’s taken two weeks to go the other direction. Now, to be sure, the drop has not only been caused by what the President did but it’s been an important part of it. It’s no coincidence that his announcement and the decline of oil prices happened in such close proximity to each other.

Heck, the Republican are so serious about this that they’re going to hold up every single piece of legislation through the August recess until the Democratic majority faces the facts they’ve been hiding from since they took over Congress. Megan McArdle got a good look at the Dems proposed solution and pronounces it a steaming pile of idiocy.

At some point, the Democratic leadership might want to brush up on the laws of economics. They don’t need to do the same with the laws of politics. I have the feeling that the American public is going to teach them that lesson soon enough.