Because the MSM will be on tonight asking why Obama would say such outrageous thing.

Allow me to take a crack at that. It gives him a wonderful shot at letting the air out of their tires with an icepick to the sidewalls.

Many of the would be 'progressives' lack a grasp of Obama's zen nature and his quiet genius at flipping the flailing GOP foolery.

I can't begin to summarize the many hothead calls all over the 'progressive' blog world that expect him to be as ridiculous as McCain and go ballistic when it would obviously be a failed banzai charge.

Obama is making a quiet steady warmth zone loaded with sturdy pragmatic common sense because he actually trusts the array of troubled Americans to want to be there.

Look at the near cliche in the 'progressive' blog commentariat that all Americans (except them) must somehow be irredeemable imbeciles. Try wading through a Crooks and Liars comment pile if you can stand the gross misspellings and dim one liners.

It isn't really even a defense so much as a rising to the occasion of an opportunity. The batshit desperate GOP is busy immolating itself due to an incapacity to admit that the Bush Mess is one of the worst things to ever afflict the nation.

They are twisting themselves into crazy knots trying to 'win' in a situation where they have left broadscale wreckage and anyone with the clue given a vole knows it.

Sure the 1% corporate Looter class will throw all the weight they have to evade taxes, but they just don't have much punch now that they have made a near hell of life for most honest citizens who aren't riding on the looter gravy train.

I agree, with caveats. Ben Smith is a bit unfair sometimes, Ken Vogel is REALLY unfair. Carrie Budoff Brown is unfair. But in general, it's a good place to get an overview of news. I don't take anything said there for fact, but they do a better job than a lot of other places and I prefer then to something like The Nation or New Republic. Not the only place I read, but the place I read for counterbalance.

And unlike McCain and his people, he comes across as funny and charming instead of smarmy and arrogant.

past Hell's new ski resort.

Actually, most of the fact-checking I've seen done on this subject acknowledges this fact. The point is not to prove that it would produce more energy in the long run than oil drilling, the point is that oil drilling would just BARELY do better than everyone simply keeping their tires inflated. And not only that, it wouldn't do it for years and years, while inflating our tires can be done NOW. Pushing for a tuneup (perhaps asking for people to do so with stimulus money) can also be accomplished now.

If all Obama said was needed was conservation, he would be in the wrong. But it isn't, and he's introduced an aggressive strategy that would actually produce benefits. A tax refund of several thousand for buyers of hybrid cars and stimulus for automakers to build hybrids here could mean a LOT less gas being used.

Compare that to John Mccain, who wants to throw 300 million at a solution that already exists in other countries.