The Rampant Audacity of the McCain Campaign

This is rich.

John McCain released a new political advertisement that fingers the person responsible for the runaway energy costs in this country.

No, it is not greedy oil cartels, the Exxon-Mobils of this world. And you would be dangerously mistaken if you somehow blame the Saudis and other oil-producing nations of OPEC. Don’t even think of looking in the direction of Wall Streeters and other commodity traders manipulating and speculating on the price of crude oil.

Energy hungry developing nations like China and their industrialized kins in Western Europe don’t have anything to do with the runaway price of oil either.

World automakers who absolutely refuse to make energy-efficient vehicles and American consumers who have raised consumption to a new art form and who car-makers fear won’t buy their green cars are not accountable either.

No, none of the above.

After eight years of mendacious Republican misrule, including at least one war fraudulently sold to the American people as a way to lower the cost of energy, it is clear who is making the price of gas go up. In the words of the McCain campaign, it is:

“Obama! Obama! Obama!”

The ad is astonishing in both its simplicity and the degree to which it assumes Americans are truly stupid. I don’t know if this is saying, that no one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the American voters. This ad and much of the McCain campaign will put that idea to severe test.

The “Pump” ad:

The ad begins with a lone gas pump in a mirage-hear-haze like, what, desert? I can’t tell.

Then a woman speaks:

“Gas prices – $4, $5, no end in sight, because some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.

“No to independence from foreign oil.

“Who can you thank for rising prices at the pump?”

Cue to the ubiquitous “Obama! Obama! Obama” chants that we’ve hear too often in this campaign.

A silence is then followed by an announcer:

“One man knows we must now drill more in America and rescue our family budgets.

“Don’t hope for more energy, vote for it. McCain.”

Then the purveyor of this nonsense speaks:

“I’m John McCain and I approve this message.”

This is the kind of advertisement I would expect one of those crooked 527 groups to run. At least in those ads, you know not to expect accountability and the campaign can attempt to deny responsibility for it. That John McCain would stoop so low this early in the campaign tells you he’s either desperate, or he does not expect the dreaded MSM to call him on its sheer stupidity.