Straight-Talk Outta Hell

John McCain got a lot of milage (haw haw) last week out of ridiculing the idea that routine auto maintenance might somehow help Americans save money on gasoline. He passed out tire gauges at a speech as a kind of punchline. Clearly the last thing Americans should do to cut their dependence on foreign oil is USE LESS OIL.

This week, however, McCain said this: “Obama said a couple of days ago says we all should inflate our tires. I don’t disagree with that... (but) I don’t think that that (inflating tires) is a way to become energy independent." Which is fine, because Obama didn't say that either. He laid out a bunch of items on an energy plan. To pick out one and say it won't do the job is pretty lazy arguing.

But in April, McCain said this: "...And I'm sorry to tell you that the price of oil -- as far as I can tell -- is not gonna go down anytime soon until we eliminate our dependency on it.
We can do that as a nation -- we can turn out the lights five minutes earlier, we don't have to drive the extra block." So between April and now, he decided that we need to PROLONG our "dependency" on oil to bring down the price. Plus, like Jimmy Carter, he apparently feels the best way to solve the crisis (I don't think it's a crisis myself) is to wear sweaters, walk to the store, burn candles, stuff like that. I'm assuming that's still his position because he hasn't contradicted it this afternoon.

I'm guessing that most people want the country to go in a different direction than it is now, and I'm also guessing that the man who will steer it that way didn't vote along with the current President 95% 88.3% of the time.

(Latest figure courtesy of Ana Marie Cox at Swampland)