Not even Harry Potter can bring down gas prices

So says Obama's Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar:

“Not even Harry Potter” can bring down rising gas prices and nobody knows when they will stop rising, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday.

“No one has the ability – not even Harry Potter – to simply wave a magic wand and say that we’re going to have gas prices at $2 or $2.50 or $3. It just doesn’t work that way,” said Salazar, whose department controls oil and gas drilling on federal lands.

The comments came after a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on energy issues.

Darn.  I always just assumed when it came to Obama's "hope" and "change" meme, magic was implied...

Our friend David Harsanyi adds:

Salazar is solar-powered phony, even by the high standards of Washington. I recall covering his 2004 senate campaign in Colorado, where he ran on an anti-energy plank with the slogan, "Fighting for Colorado's Land, Water and People" ("people" coming in a distant third, I assure you). Watching the high-powered Denver lawyer ride around the state pandering in cowboy hat and pickup truck was something else. His grasp of policy, though, was negligible.

And though, I'm probably less inclined to blame high oil prices on government policy than most readers, Salazar has done as much as he can for the cause.