When policy isn't

We were still chewing on that rather odd remark made by the President last week at an event in Pennsylvania when in response to what was being done about the high price of gas, the President told the man to trade in his SUV for a higher mileage car.

It seemed odd, condescending and totally tone-deaf until we were reminded of this quote by Steven Chu, the Energy Secretary, made back in 2008:

"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe."

Somehow makes it sound like there's some sort of complicated or even magic formula for doing it when in reality they are achieving their desired results in spades by not drilling and banking our energy future on wind turbines and solar farms. Not magic.

So, given the quote by Chu, why would this administration be counted upon to develop any sort of coherent and productive energy policy? And given the President's statement above, whatever coherency there is to it boils down to: "It's your fault". Hey, big spender... don't look at me to provide any leadership in this matter. However, you might want to think about dialing it back a bit and purchasing a car that no one likes.

We'll hand it, though, to the amazing political skills of the President as anyone else would get run off the stage after saying what he did.


Once again, we'll just leave it to Mark Steyn to finish things off:

America, 2011: A man gets driven in a motorcade to sneer at a man who has to drive himself to work. A guy who has never generated a dime of wealth, never had to make payroll, never worked at any job other than his own tireless self-promotion literally cannot comprehend that out there beyond the far fringes of the motorcade outriders are people who drive a long distance to jobs whose economic viability is greatly diminished when getting there costs twice as much as the buck-eighty-per-gallon it cost back at the dawn of the Hopeychangey Era.