I’m feeling very soured by the primaries. No surprise, right? A lot of people are rather soured. But it is. McCain is getting rose-scented air blown up his…nose…and the smitten collective political awareness seems reluctant to admit that this is a guy who is bushier than Bush, a flip-flopper who wasn’t so gung-ho about leaving troops in Iraq (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com) before becoming more gung-ho than Cheney on a hunting trip, a man who loves an angry pastor but doesn’t get called on it. And what about McCain’s soulmate, Hillary Clinton? Among many of my friends and acquaintances, a trend emerged. Clinton started out as a strong, whip-smart lady with a strong grip on policy issues, a candidate fwho wouldn’t be all that objectionable if she won the nomination. But after praising McCain over Obama, waffling over Obama’s religion (he’s Christian, not Muslim…and there’s nothing wrong with being Muslim, dagnabit), and dragging on that Rev. Wright nonsense. After her surrogates lamely attack Joe Andrews by questioning his Hoosier credentials, when he was born and raised in Indiana, studied in Indiana and so on, (http://www.mydd.com/story) she now elicits comparisons with Rove-style Republican campaigning, with all the nausea and disgust that comes with it. And all this doesn’t start touching on the increasingly lack of foreign policy difference between Clinton and her new pal McCain. Bomb Iran, eh?
It Gets Worse. Here Comes the Cavalry.
But as sour as all this is, as much as it is unfair that Obama is being held responsible for someone else’s words through the media’s smear campaign, there is something else souring me and everyone else: gas prices. We’re all suffering from stratospheric poisoning while oil companies post billions and billions of dollars in profit. Where’s the relief? Where’s the sanity?
Fortunately, the cavalry’s in town with a plan. That’s right, McCain and Clinton have the solution: a gas tax suspension. Whoa, Nellie. Somebody catch me ‘cuz I’m gonna faint. Good thing I’m sitting down, eh? I mean, really. Like, wow. A gas tax suspension. I’m stunned. Flabbergasted. Gobsmacked, even.
Not surprisingly, reactions to the plan have not been all that enthusiastic (http://www.washingtonpost.com/).
Beyond the obvious fact that we need a comprehensive energy policy that moves us beyond oil to something sustainable in the long-term, there’s another action we can take in regards to oil companies that, frankly, I’m surprised isn’t grabbing headlines. That Washington Post article does allude to it briefly when discussing Obama’s criticism of the McCain-Clinton Emergency Pandering Plan, but it needs to be made a bit more explicit: windfall tax. The reasoning is very simple – and I say this despite the fact that I’m not a fan of using government as a bludgeon. If the oil companies are making so much money in profit, then we are paying too much. We are paying far more for gas than it is worth. Thus, we should get a refund, just as we would in any situation where we overpaid for a product or service. So, oil companies? Tax the [expletive deleted].
But Clinton wants a vote on the issue (http://news.yahoo.com), using it to chip away at Obama and oblivious to the strange bedfellow she’s chosen in her determination to win the nomination. And McCain is riding his high horse. Rhetoric, rhetoric everywhere. Of course, we should trust McCain because he’s just so gosh-darned honest and filled with mavericky-goodness. All right, then. Let’s trust him. As he told the Washington Post (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/), “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.” There you have it. Between him and Clinton, this cunning gas tax suspension is revealing in one particular way: two out of three presidential candidates are still playing in the little leagues.
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Frédérik would be thrilled if you read his blog (
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