CNN is slowly realizing it stepped on a rake when it chose to cry Apocalypse! for months to spook Americans about prices going to the stratosphere because of the Strait of Hormuz chaos. CNN Business economics reporter Elisabeth Buchwald published a piece on June 25 with a headline that said the quiet part out loud: “Inflation topped 4% in May, but the worst may be over.” Wait! So in other words, all that CNN crystal “bull” about oil not seeing $70 prices again until 2032 could have potentially just been a load of mindless media dreck? Perish the thought! Buchwald chose to shoehorn some common sense into the economic debate, underscoring why the media’s fixation on volatile energy prices artificially inflated by war jitters didn’t comport with reality. “But when stripping out gas and food prices, two of the most volatile components tracked, so-called core inflation rose at a much more muted annual rate of 3.4% from 3.3% in April.” It stands to reason, as MRC Business had been arguing for months, that prices will more than likely ease significantly once the Iran War is settled and schizophrenic commodity traders cool their jets over access to the Strait of Hormuz. For all the bluster to the contrary, the U.S. and global oil benchmarks in particular (West Texas Intermediate and Brent) are currently hovering around $70 a barrel.  With this context in mind, it’s worth reminding readers that CNN is the same network that ran this stupid headline April 2, “$200 oil isn’t as crazy as it sounds.” Buchwald herself tried to refurbish the inflation story as far back as March when CNN’s narrative over Trump tariff-driven inflation spikes never materialized. Buchwald moved the goalposts, pivoting from Trump tariff fears to blaming the Iran war for potentially sending prices skyrocketing. “Inflation held firm last month — but the war with Iran could change that,” read Buchwald’s March 11 headline. Now, as Buchwald inadvertently suggests, the ensuing Middle East conflict didn’t help CNN’s case against the president at all in retrospect.  Relatively speaking, the price fluctuations as a result of the Iran War completely paled in comparison to the 9.1 percent inflation rate under President Joe Biden in June 2022, which happened without an international war to boot.  In response, Buchwald is apparently getting a head start on the crow eating as prices begin to head south and undercut CNN’s doom-mongering once again:  Meanwhile, spending and income rose faster than economists anticipated last month … Another positive development: personal savings ticked up slightly in May after dwindling for months as consumers spent more on gas … In a separate report from the Commerce Department, US gross domestic product, which measures all the goods and services produced in the economy, was revised higher to 2.1% from 1.6% in the third estimate. Buchwald is clearly aware CNN lost the argument, especially since her employer chose to feature the network’s obnoxious gas price ticker on-screen and on the website homepage before reducing its visibility when the metric started going south. Talk about peak narrative management!