Today’s Riddle

by Paul on May 3, 2008

Q: Why is a large, dull-witted, cuddly-looking black-and-white bamboo eater at the Boston Zoo like the current Clinton gas tax proposal?

A: Because it’s a stupid pander.

The sight of the candidate so desperate for votes that she insults the intelligence of the voters so badly, and worse, continues to pound away at it, is painful to those of us who would like to maintain a positive opinion of her. Even if she isn’t my choice, I’d like to respect her intelligence and good will.

But come on. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the holes in this ‘gas tax holiday’ plan. Many others have eviscerated it, so I won’t belabor the point. I do have to suggest, however, that the true elitism is to believe that the common folk can’t figure out the basic flaw in the idea all by their little selves.

The guys running the gas station know that people will buy gas, and plenty of it, at the current price. And they also have the right to set their prices as they like, as we’ve seen them do. So, take away the 18 cents a gallon tax, and will they lower the price 18 cents? Um, no. They’ll continue to charge the price people are grumpily paying now, and make 18 cents a gallon more profit. Even if the feds later tax the oil companies, it just isn’t going to lower the cost of filling my personal gas tank. I won’t even take home the $6 total that Obama is making fun of.

That’s not really hard to figure out. So does Hillary think that the number of hard-of-thinking Indiana primary voters she’ll win is larger than the number who will be insulted by her suggesting they were born yesterday, who resent being treated like rubes?

Or greater than the number she will lose by proposing a cheap trick she borrowed from the Republican candidate, even if she did put lipstick on the pig with talk of a windfall profit tax?

And does she really think, after all these years of George Bush, that what Americans are looking for is someone to put forward simplistic and stupid schemes, stubbornly refuse to abandon them when confronted by expert opposition telling them it won’t work, use them to hypocritically club political opponents and introduce pointless legislation that won’t pass Congress just for the point of advancing a rhetorical position for a personal political agenda?

I’m really tired of that. I thought we all were.

Update: An interesting snapshot from TPM Election Central.

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