The Republican Party and Gasoline Prices

There's a chart on the Republican Party home page. Let's take a look.

Figure 1: Gasoline Prices as seen from the Republican perspective (three-year interval)

(Source, 2012-06-05) Here's another chart:

Figure 2: Gasoline Prices (eight-year interval)

(Source)

Data don't lie. Republicans do^[1]. See that stuff in the left half of Figure 2? Where the gas prices were rising? Who was the USA president from 2004—2008? When the gas prices were rising? The president does not control the price of gasoline.

In addition to this misuse of information, you may have noticed that they put a background image on their chart (nothing says “PR department” quite like distracting graphics). I might be reading too much into it, but given that it's sitting right on their front page, it probably had quite a lot of money^[2] put into it, so I think speculation on motive is appropriate. Notice how they've shaded the two regions (above and below the graph), and, in particular, how it looks like Obama is standing in a shadow (which, I suspect, has psychological effects that their focus groups have revealed). I don't know why they speckled the whole thing, other than to give you a headache when you try to read the annotations^[3]. There are other psycho-visual tricks they're playing, but I'll let you find them on your own.

Notes
1. ^It's not just misleading, it's a lie. The lie here is in the heading that they put on the chart, specifically, the use of the word “under”, which implies a causative or controlling relationship.
2. ^Normally one would put thought into something, but Republicans put money instead.
3. ^Is anyone surprised that the Republicans are discouraging reading?