"Guaging" Obama, libs, on Energy

How to guage Obama's ignorance on energy

By C. Edmund Wright

Could the tire guage be Barack Obama's Swift Boat? Are we about to find a 527 group known as Tire Mechanics for Truth? Unlikely, perhaps. But Obama did violate the political rule of holes today by continuing to argue the point that much of the nation's energy issues could be solved by simply inflating our tires. He cites a NASCAR report, no less. (tire pressure is indeed vital when going 175 mph).

Uh, memo to Obama campaign: most people already do inflate their tires properly. Unlike the so-called "motorists" Obama blithely refers to when discussing gas prices, most Americans rely on their cars or trucks for important purposes like transporting families and much of the fuel burned on America's roads are done so by professionally maintained fleet vehicles.

In other words Senator Obama, "motorists" are not some academic study group subjects that casually scoot across the fruited plain for no particular reason. Oil is the lifeblood of the economy...an ecomony that more or less only happens when someone goes somewhere to buy or sell something...and then that thing is delivered or carried home or performed by yet another entity that has to drive somewhere.

Obama's "motorists," are pretty much all Americans that do not live in Seinfeld's neighborhood where they walk everywhere. Even then, some diesel burning truck has to deliver the deli meats and coffee to their beloved café. And this is a micro cosm of so much of the nation's elite...be they political, media or financial...and their total lack of understanding of just what it is that energy does for our society and economy.

Obama clearly does not get it. (Neither does a particular Arizona senator vying for the same job Obama wants...but he has a few advisors who do). The media machine that is his defacto campaign does not get it. Nancy Pelosi really doesn't get it. Only a scant few of the cable financial pundits get it.

"It" is this. Energy is not optional. It is not bad. It is not only used in America, by gun totin' and Bible clinging rednecks. It did not have diddly squat to do with the global warming in the 1300's and most don't really think it has anything to do with whatever climate change is (or is not) going on now. (that is, according to a survey showing that most Americans would not pay so much as an extra penny for gas if it meant lowering carbon emissions). It, in fact, happens in nature. Be it crude oil or cow's methane, it is "all natural."

Conservation, while a good idea on some fronts, is not an answer to the crisis now and certainly is not good for the economy. Demand destruction, as it is called in financial circles, means economic destruction. When people aren't using as much gas, it means they aren't buying as much, selling as much, spending as much (and to the horror of liberals, not contributing to the tax base as much.) They aren't eating out as much, staying in as many hotels, flying as much or going to as many soccer travel league games.

Is there any wonder that we are using less gas....and our economy is slowing down...at the same time? Concidence? Not so much. Do we like that "demand destruction" now? How is that conservation working out? Sorry about those union jobs building SUVs....maybe you union guys should have thought twice about voting straight Democrat for say, 70 years.

All of these things are connected. And not in an Al Gore tree hugging carmic way. In a hard, cold common sense type of way.

Consider:

Liberals, like Obama, want Americans to use less energy.

Liberals want lots of tax revenues to pay for all kinds of social programs. 

Liberals also want high paying union jobs for things like auto manufacturing.

Union guys like that, so they want liberal politicians.

Then liberals get elected and liberal policies like "no drilling" get enacted.

Such policies have caused four dollar gas.

That leads to a real "demand destruction" for SUVs which endangers hundreds of thousands of union jobs.

That leads to lay-offs in all kinds of sectors of the economy which has liberal's bleeding hearts really hemoraging.

It leads to Americans driving less, which is what liberals said they wanted all along.

But that leads to reduced tax revenues, which of course has liberals scratching their heads and threatening to make things worse by rasing taxes.

Gee, I can't wait for "change we can believe in." Such change would mean Obama in the White House and Nancy "Lights Out" Pelosi and Harry "oil is making us sick" Reid in control of even more power than they have now. Such change would mean that our entire country would be run by folks who haven't the faintest clue on how to connect the very basic dots above. Such change would mean that the only power being produced in this country is political power for the left. Such change might have Robert Reich as Labor Secretary or (perish the thought) Energy Czar.

Such change would mean China and India and Saudi Arabia can thrust their economies forward burning all of that carbon...while we limp backwards fecklessly begging our propellers to turn. (yes, the Middle East's own energy consumption is actually the biggest growth area...shhhh). Yes, women hating Muslim oil sheiks will flaunt their Mercedez S Class sedans and big American SUVs while we fight about whether or not to cut down tree's liberals made us plant ten years ago because they are blocking solar panels liberals made us install last year. And I'm pretty sure those sheiks are not pro choice, by the way.

These are some of the likely results if the country turns political control over to the liberal movement whose stunning lack of even the most basic understanding of the energy-economic-security algorithm is scary.

So, how do you guage just how cluless Obama and his advisors are on energy? You can't. They don't even register on the dial.