Here’s a video that’s worth seeing. (Hat tip to Ben Smith at Politico.com.)
“It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant,” Obama says. I’m thrilled whenever I hear politicians calling each other out on that tactic rather than trying to outdo each other with the old “I’m jest reg’lur folks like you, don’t need no fancypants edjumucation” act. If there’s an effective, logically sound idea out there, we should use it, even if it might sound silly to “reg’lur folks” who don’t want to take the time to think it through. Obama’s banking on the fact that the average voter is actually smarter than that. I hope he’s right.
Sending tire gauges tagged as “Obama’s energy plan” is a cheap trick. It would have been a politically useful cheap trick if it had actually made a legitimate point, but it’s a shameful and easily mocked trick since it deliberately ignores the context surrounding the original suggestion. A man in the audience had asked about what small, everyday thing he could do to contribute to a solution to our gas woes, and Obama suggested a small, everyday thing that has been demonstrated to make a big difference. There’s nothing about that that’s worth poking fun at.
Setting a new record in missing the point, the person who posted this particular clip on YouTube has titled it “Obama Insists Inflating Tires Better Than Oil Drilling.”
Tags: barack obama, energy, oil, politics