Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Measuring hot air.

This is a tire gauge. It measures the pressure of air in your tires. Lately, it's also measured the stupid that the McCain campaign has brought to the debate about who should govern our country in the near future.

It begins with common sense advice from Barack Obama. He said one of the things an individual could do to help the energy crisis is to have the car tuned up and the tires checked. Hardly controversial.

But the right wing has exploded in derisive laughter, and the McCain campaign has seized on the little tire gauge the way the GOP laughed over those Purple Heart band-aids they passed out in 2004.

Yeah, they're funny. Ha ha. See, Kerry didn't bleed enough to be a super patriot like George Bush, the flyboy who spent his time in uniform snorting coke off an Alabama cheerleader's thigh.

Now they're saying that checking your tires is the sum total of Obama's energy policy. And this is where the stupid blossoms.

Over at The Carpetbagger Report, Steve Benen takes this apart so well that I wish I'd have written it. He suggests we take a little throw-away from one of McCain's recent speeches, one about skin cancer, and give it the GOP treatment.

McCain emphasized that skin cancer is preventable, and implored Americans to wear sunscreen, especially over the summer. What’s wrong with this advice? Not a thing. It’s a smart, sensible thing to say.

But imagine if Obama and his surrogates said the entirety of McCain’s healthcare policy is sunscreen application. McCain doesn’t really care about cancer, they could argue, he just wants everyone to run out at get some SPF 30.

Those vying to be Obama’s running mate started holding up bottles of Coppertone during their speeches, saying things like, “We want you to wear sunscreen, you know, it will very mildly improve your chances of not getting sick. But wearing sunscreen is not a healthcare policy for the United States of America.”


And about that tire gauge advice? Seems that Obama's suggestion is backed up by other left-wingers like The Energy Department, two Republican governors and NASCAR.

Sweet Jesus, this is some cynical shit, playing the voters for idiots. And according to the polls, it's working.

Somebody shoot me.

2 comments:

JD Rhoades said...

It's typical Rethuglicanism. Take somethig perfectly normal, and make it seem sinister. Remember when Michael Dukakis suggested to tobacco farmers the perfectly reasonable altenative of, you know, growing someting else?

As for the polls, it's still summer. Wait for the conventions.

dean said...

It worked on Kerry.

I will be foreever astonished that the Republicans 1. had the gall to attempt to subvert Kerry's war record and 2. managed to pull it off.

The Swiftboating of Kerry is one of the major reasons that make be believe that Karl Rove is evil. Not just a jerk, or a partisan, but actively evil, a despicable human being.