Over-Inflated Conservatives And Obama's Energy Plan

Once again, it should be noted that there are quite a lot of people in the conservative movement that want you to believe they have a proficient knowledge of "energy conservation".

Well, it doesn't stop at energy by any means.

Conservatives will try to convince any and everyone that they have all the right answers.

Here's what Obama said:



According to FuelEconomy.Gov, one of the ways that you can make your car more fuel efficient is ( gasp!!! ) having properly inflated tires.

The Department of Transportations webiste reads in part:

Fully 27 percent of passenger cars on U.S. roadways are driven with one or more substantially under-inflated tires, according to a major survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Moreover, 32 percent of light trucks (including sport utility vehicles, vans and pickup trucks) are driven with one or more substantially under-inflated tires, according to the first study of its kind to be conducted by the government in two decades.

So, what does this all mean?

Well, if you ask the man who just celebrated his 20th year of being a lunatic-fringe conservative talking-head, he'd say this:

"My friends, this is laughable of course, but it’s stupid! It is stupid! How many of you remember the seventies? When we had these shortages, all through the Jimmy Carter years and we have all these tips, all these tips on how to save gasoline? Avoid jackrabbit starts, keep your tires properly inflated, there’s a list of about ten or twelve these things. I said if I follow each one of these things I’ll have to stop the car every five miles, siphon some fuel out, for all the fuel I’m going to be saving. This is ridiculous. This is a presidential candidate and he's talking about keeping your tires inflated and getting regular tune-ups and that would save as much oil as drilling would produce. And this guy is the Democrat presidential nominee. Who has filled his head with this stuff"

Take a listen.

Seriously, anyone with a half-functioning brain-stem and even the most modest level of mathmatical knowledge can figure this out - basic car maintanence can help fuel efficiency.

Frank Verrastro, Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), says that all you have to do is look at the numbers:

the maximum (estimated) fuel economy (i.e., mileage) savings drivers could expect as a result of keeping their engines properly tuned (4%), replacing air filters (up to 10%), properly inflating tires (up to 3%) and using the correct motor oil (1-2%) is 18-19%. Since American drivers use roughly 380 million gallons of gasoline (not including diesel) per day, an 18% improvement translates into a savings of 68 million gallons, or 1.62 million barrels of oil per day.

Is Obama saying that "all you have to do" is have properly inflated tires?

Of course not.

But, you can't tell that to Limbaugh, or Malkin's Crew over at HotAir, and especially not Sean Hannity and Newt Gingrich.

These people are so caught up with the sounds of their own voices, so enthalled with what the conservative movement tells them, they would chemically castrate themselves if told that it would make them more money, or get them a larger audience.