Remember back when Jimmy Carter was urging us all to wear sweaters and turn down our thermostats because his failed energy policies had us in long communist-proletariat-peasant-bread-line-style lines for shockingly expensive gas and fuel oil?
Well, as we keep telling you over and over again, it’s Welcome back, Carter all over again.

Shivering in the dark and freezing at night was not an answer to America’s energy needs then, and it isn’t one now.
Speaking of “now,” Obama’s got a new, modern version of Carter’s “Energy? We don’t need no stinkin’ energy!” policies:
“I know some of these big guys, they’re all still driving their big SUVs. You know, they got their big monster trucks and everything. You’re one of them? Well, now, here’s my point. If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting eight miles a gallon–(laughter)–you may have a big family, but it’s probably not that big. How many you have? Ten kids, you say? Ten kids? (Laughter.) Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then. (Laughter.) . . .
So, like I said, if you’re getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in. You can get a great deal. I promise you, GM or Ford or Chrysler, they’re going to be happy to give you a deal on something that gets you better gas mileage.”
One of the few remaining decent newspapers in the country wrote that Obama sans teleprompter line up this way:
The transcript shows that Obama got lots of laughs. But presumably he was speaking to a friendly audience–to people who regard the burning of gasoline as sinful and who, at least in theory, are attracted to the idea of $8-a-gallon gasoline.
People like that, to paraphrase Pauline Kael, live in a rather special world. For most Americans (we Manhattan residents are a notable exception), driving is a day-to-day necessity, and high gas prices are a constant source of economic pain. Sure, if you’re driving a guzzler, it might make sense to trade it in. But not everyone has the money lying around to buy a new car at the drop of a hat. And owners of dinky cars and hybrids still have to buy gasoline for them.
One might point out in the president’s defense that he is putting his money–haha, we mean your money–where his mouth is. Last week, as the Detroit News reported, Obama announced a plan “to ‘green’ the federal fleet”:
“I’m directing our departments and our agencies to make sure 100 percent of the vehicles they buy are fuel-efficient or clean energy cars and trucks by 2015.Not 50 percent, not 75 percent–100 percent of our vehicles,” Obama said.
Well, maybe not quite 100%. The News also reports that “some federal vehicles for law enforcement and security purposes will be exempt”–among them “the GM-built Cadillac presidential limousine and other vehicles in the motorcade.”
Then again, Obama does atone by spending a lot of time in golf carts.
President Obama’s answer to the question about high gas prices is reminiscent of candidate Obama’s 2008 disquisition on the “bitter clingers” of Pennsylvania, although the latter was not meant for public consumption. There’s little doubt that he believes these things, that he is a creature of the liberal self-styled elite. But if he doesn’t get better at concealing it, voters may think about a trade-in next November.
It’s not that Obama is just unrealistic and completely out of touch with America’s needs in relation to his far-leftist socialist radical redistributionist policies, it’s that he is simply factually wrong. An article titled “Obama fudges on oil production; snarks at big families” deals with a number of remarks Obama made during the appearance immortalized in the quote above that are simply wrong, period.
But let’s just deal with one of them, the hybrid van. There ISN’T a hybrid van. And there won’t be one any time soon:
Fuel for Thought
And finally, President Obama was asked about rising fuel prices at a town hall last week and his answer raised some conservatives’ eyebrows. Now car experts are weighing in as well.
The president said — quote — “If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting eight miles a gallon, you may have a big family, but it’s probably not that big. How many [kids do] you have? Ten kids, you say? Ten kids? Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then.”
However, Edward Loh of Motor Trend Magazine says a 12-person hybrid passenger van does not exist because — quote — “for hybrids to be effective, weight must be kept down. It wouldn’t be feasible to have a vehicle that large also be a hybrid.”
And Edmunds.com agrees, saying there are no hybrid vans that accommodate 10 or more people.
Obama keeps mocking us. We’re the bitter clingers he vilified and continues to vilify every day. But neither he nor the liberal moral idiots nor the liberal moral idiot propagandists who call themselves “journalists” realize the joke is constantly on him.
Gasoline prices have DOUBLED since Obama became our president.
“Gas prices have doubled since Mr. Obama took office,” reports the Washington Times, as the Obama Administration has doggedly blocked new American energy production and pushed job-crushing policies – like a national energy tax – that drive up prices.
Gas is now over $4 a gallon in five states, and by widespread acknowledgment it will soon be over $5 as the summer driving season hits us.
But the same mainstream media and the same Democrat Congress that tore into Bush think the insane prices are fine, now.
Obama’s energy policy is a total failure. And all the evidence is that Obama and his fellow Democrats WANT high energy prices so they can force the American people into their “green agenda” whether they want to go there or not.
Let’s look at what George Bush did when oil got expensive, and then let us consider the results of his intelligent policy:
On July 14, President Bush ended the executive ban on offshore drilling. The very next day saw the price of oil take the biggest drop in 17 years.
Within two days of Bush’s signing the executive order, the price of oil dropped from nearly $145 a barrel to $130.73 a barrel. And within four days, it had dropped to $128.88. And Harry Reid wants to take credit for this drop in price with his incredibly airheaded speculation bill that never really had a chance of overcoming a filibuster to begin with?
In the House, Democrats are putting the energy bill on the “suspension calender” in a move that will require a 2/3 majority to pass any legislation, but which prevents the Republicans from adding ANY amendments to allow for drilling on federal lands or contribute in any way.
Democrats are so paranoid that a drilling amendment might be introduced that they would rather scuttle any meaningful vote whatsoever.
Why did President Bush lift the ban?:
The White House announced today that President Bush will lift an executive order banning offshore oil drilling, a move aimed at stepping up pressure on Congress to end the prohibition it imposed in 1981.On July 14, President Bush ended the executive ban on offshore drilling. The very next day saw the price of oil take the biggest drop in 17 years.
At the time George Bush ended the ban on offshore drilling, oil cost $147 a barrel. Oil had become more and more and more expensive in a staggering trend. But from the moment – the moment – Bush ended the ban, oil prices immediately began to go down in a constant trend as the industry reacted to the idea that more oil would be available. Within six months, the price of a barrel of oil had gone down to $37.
But a new president came along, and the market realized that he had an anti-business, anti-oil and anti-growth policy. And the markets reacted accordingly.
The Lonely Conservative quotes Politico on the fact that “Even Bill Clinton Thinks Obama’s Drilling Ban Is Ridiculous“:
The event was not covered by the press, but sources confirmed the exchange to Politico.
But according to multiple people in the room, Clinton, surprisingly, agreed with Bush on many oil and gas issues, including criticism of delays in permitting offshore since last year’s Gulf of Mexico spill.
“Bush said all the things you’d expect him to say” on oil and gas issues, said Jim Noe, senior vice president at Hercules Offshore and executive director of the pro-drilling Shallow Water Energy Security Coalition. But Clinton added, “You’d be surprised to know that I agree with all that,” according to Noe and others in the room.
Clinton said there are “ridiculous delays in permitting when our economy doesn’t need it,” according to Noe and others.
“That was the most surprising thing they said,” Noe said.
The two former presidents both generally agreed on the need to get offshore drilling workers back on the job.
Clinton and Bush also agreed on the need for more domestic shale gas production, with Clinton noting that it has been done safely for years in his home state of Arkansas.
Obama gave a speech in which he took credit for Bush and Clinton-era policies even as his own policies were strangling oil production. And even Clinton had to agree that Obama’s policies were ridiculous and counter-productive.
We’ve got a complete fool, a moral idiot, a Jimmy Carter Part Deux, running things.
It’s just a small little part of “No, no, no! Not God bless America, God damn America!”
For the record, it isn’t just Obama’s stupid and morally idiotic energy policies that are creating this self-inflicted open and infectious wound plaguing Americans at every fill-up. There are other stupid and morally idiotic Obama policies at work, too. Obama has seriously devalued the U.S. Dollar with his reckless spending policies. The world oil supply is bought and sold in U.S. dollars. And OPEC sure isn’t going to pay for Obama’s weak dollar. Thus as the value of our dollar goes down, the more worthless dollars it will take to buy a barrel.
We need to get this fool and the fool Democrats out of power. America’s very survival is at stake.