McCain and Clinton are Stupid

John McCain and Hillary Clinton have found a way to simultaneously show their complete inability to come up with real solutions to the substantial problems facing the nation, and shamelessly pander to clueless voters. McCain and Clinton recently came out in favor of a summer-long suspension of the 18 cent-per-gallon federal gas tax, which would save most Americans a whopping $30 over the course of the summer.

As David Weigel at Reason Magazine put it, the entire thing is nothing but "phony populism in the service of a 'tax cut' that would fund one meal for two at Applebees, which may or may not include dessert." When the libertarians at Reason come out against a tax break, you know it has to be completely worthless.

The "tax break" looks even sillier when one considers that gas prices throughout most of America have risen by almost double this 18 cent amount in the past 2 weeks, and look to continue rising.

To his credit, Barack Obama opposes the measure as feckless, and pointed out that the suspension would deprive states of funds for road repairs, raise demand for imported gas, and do nothing to address the broader issues of rising energy costs and dependence on foreign oil.

To top it all off, Clinton accused Obama of being "out of touch" with middle-class Americans because he doesn't support the measure. Clinton's cynical manipulation and complete lack of principle are at this point virtually beyond parody. She is a walking, sniper-fire-dodging caricature of a lying, amoral, power-hungry politician.

As for McCain, this just seems like a sad attempt to bolster his conservative credentials by "lowering taxes". Whatever his faults, Obama gets credit for largely avoiding this sort of deceitful nonsense.

Politics at its finest.