It's adorable how you only have to tell Peter Doocy six or seven times to do his homework before he half-asses it and maybe makes a phone call, if he even did that.

For over a week, now, Jen Psaki has been explaining to this particular Fox nepocritter (and other right-wing "reporters") that the people to whom he should be talking about why oil and gas prices are so high are actual oil and gas company executives. She's explained in multiple press conferences that the Keystone Pipeline has no bearing whatsoever on easing supply or lowering prices, and that oil companies here have nine thousand unused leases on land on which they can commence drilling immediately, if not sooner, should they so choose.

Finally, Doocy made a phone call, or whatever, and someone fed him this insightful (/s) piece of questioning.

"You and the president are both talking about producing energy here, saying that oil and gas companies have nine thousand permits to drill now, they could be drilling right now. Would President Biden cut red tape to make that possible?" he asked.

Oh, the ole "bIg gOvErNmEnT rEd tApE" complaint. Soooo original.

Psaki responded, "What red tape needs to be cut, when they have the permits, they have the capacity to do it? What's holding them up?"

Unable to see THAT curveball coming, Doocy let it swish right by him without swinging, forgetting about red tape to move on to the next question.

"Does President Biden think that each of these nine thousand leases that are available have oil or gas in them?" Doocy asked. "Because industry experts are saying that that accusation is a complete red herring, some permits are viable and some are not, and that when you say that, this represents a fundamental misunderstanding as to how this process works."

Now we have a red herring, with a condescending misogyny chaser from the oil dudes, what with the little red-headed lady not understanding how this process works.

Or does she?

"Well, first of all, nearly sixty percent of leased acres remain non-producing," she informed him. "That's a lot, in the range of twenty million acres. So, there are nine thousand unused approved permits to drill in that should not require us inviting them to do that. They should do that themselves."

Doocy remembered the red tape: "But they can't get the additional permits, so, would the president..."

Psaki reminded him there wasn't any red tape: "What additional permits do they need? They have, the leases are there, the permits are there, I don't think they need an embroidered invitation to drill. They are oil companies. The permits have been granted, Peter."

It must be exhausting spelling these things out to people old enough to shave.

She went further, properly shining a brighter, more focused spotlight on why oil companies are so reluctant to make use of the land they already have.

"What is happening here is that we are seeing, these are private sector companies, we recognize that, many of them are making record profits. We see that, that is all publicly available data," Psaki told him. "They have pressure to return cash to investors and their shareholders. What we're saying right now is that there is a war. We're asking them to go use the approved permits, use the unused space, and go get more supply out of the ground in our own country."

I don't believe people choose to be unintelligent. I do believe that when they choose to be uninformed, they deserve to be shamed when they put their chosen ignorance on display for the world to see.

UPDATE: Regarding ignorance on display....