An example of Obama trying to avoid the appearance of being completely out of touch. So he sees that prices will continue to drop. He would not want prices to decline with him doing nothing but playing gold. So he releases oil from the strategic reserve (a truly meaningless action). Now Obama has all the PR coverage he needs.
If he is really interested in lowering prices, and he isn't, he would issue the equivalent of a "Hey, Diddle Diddle. Let's drill in the middle (of everywhere)." Current prices would drop in anticipation of future supplies coming on line. Happened before and will happen again just as soon as he acts decisively.