In Missouri, Romney Attacks Obama for Rising Gas Prices KIRKWOOD, Mo. - Standing in front of a jungle gym, Mitt Romney spoke to voters crowded onto picnic benches here Tuesday morning and attacked President Obama over rising gas prices. Mr. Romney first offered up some suggestions for why gas prices are skyrocketing, including Mr. Obama's objection to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "Maybe it's related to the fact that you said we couldn't get a pipeline in from Canada known as Keystone," he continued. Those things affect gasoline prices, long term. But, turning to comments the president made Monday about gas prices rising because of concerns over military action in Iran, Mr. Romney accused Mr. Obama of taking a "serious foreign policy issue" and using it to play politics. "He said it's because Republican presidential candidates are talking in a very muscular way about Iran and their nuclear program," Mr. Romney said. Now that's a pretty tough one to follow, and frankly, it's disappointing to have the president of the United States take a serious foreign policy issue - which is Iran, the state sponsor of terror in the world, becoming nuclear - and trying to turn that into, saying we're somehow responsible for high gasoline prices in this country. It's a real stretch, even for a guy who's gotten pretty good at making excuses. Mr. Romney added: "I wish as a president, he would finally take responsibility for 24 million people out of work or underemployed in this country. Take responsibility for not having drilled for more oil when he could have. Take responsibility for home values having gone down, down, down. As gas prices continue to rise, along with increased talk of war with Iran and stumbles in Afghanistan, Mr. Obama's approval rating has fallen. A new New York Times/CBS News poll shows that only 41 percent of respondents approve of the job the president is doing, with 47 percent saying they disapprove, a substantial drop in recent weeks. Mr. Romney is campaigning in Missouri because the state holds precinct caucuses on Saturday to begin choosing its 52 delegates to the Republican National Convention. Rick Santorum won the state's nonbinding primary on Feb. 7, along with Colorado's and Minnesota's. Though Mr. Romney devoted most of his nearly 20-minute speech to attacking the president, he began with a distinctly local question - is "Missouri" pronounced "mih-ZUR-ee" or "mih-ZUR-uh?" Though former Senator Jim Talent, who introduced Mr. Romney, had gone with "mih-ZUR-uh," the crowd cheered loudly when Mr. Romney said, "mih-ZUR-ee." "O.K., I'm in mih-ZUR-ee right now," he said, ceding to crowd consensus. I think we're going to mih-ZUR-uh a little later today. Yeah, we're taking a trip over to mih-ZUR-uh.