Obama thinks the man who wants lower gas prices is socially irresponsible. I can explain.
This is why the nation needs me. Nearly every right-side pundit who analyzed the exchange between Obama and the man in Pennsylvania about gas prices got it wrong.
A man asked the President about gas prices and wondered if there was anything we could do to bring them down. While trying to explain three steps to lowering the prices, Obama said this, (1:45-2:37)
………where most of our oil is used. Now, I noticed some folks clapped, but I know some of these big guys, they’re still all driving their big SUV’s they got their big monster trucks and everything, (pointing to man who asked him the question) You’re one of them? Now, here’s my point, you know, if you’re complaining about the price of gas, and you only gettin’ 8 miles a gallon, (looks around for support, chuckles some more) you know, you may have a big family, but it’s probably not that big, (laughs some more) so, how many do you have, ten kids you say, ten kids? (Big smile, looks incredulous, disbelieving, long pause) Well, you definitely need a hybrid van then. (laughs in crowd, guffaws) Ha! But, here’s the thing is that, last year for the first time….
I first found the youtube clip of this exchange at .
Obama is having fun with the man. He picked a number like 8 mpg out of the air, suggested “big guys” are just being macho, and laughed at the gentleman and then laughed when he found out the guy had 10 kids.
What Obama said was, the fellow was irresponsible for driving an SUV when there are hybrid vehicles to buy that get better mileage. Then he said that the man was irresponsible for having ten kids.
You didn’t hear that?
and read my transcription. Just make two windows, do it simultaneously. He was looking around and laughing at the fellow because he couldn’t afford gas to cart his ten kids around in and SUV. To a snob elitist like Obama, this man is obviously uneducated and a fool. To a snob elitist like Obama, the man deserves no empathy because he is the fool who got himself in this predicament. Who has 10 children these days anyway? Why does this guy think he has any right to complain after overcrowding our schools and using all that water, creating all that carbon? He has no one to blame but himself, the fool, for being exactly what this country does not need. We already use 25% of the world’s oil and this fool has just exacerbated the problem by bringing all these kids to life.
Obama said this a little earlier in the clip,
What we can do is increase the amount of oil production here in the United States. but here is the thing about oil. We have about 2-3% of the world’s proven oil reserves, we use 25% of the worlds oil. so, think about it, even if we doubled the amount of oil that we produce, we’d still be short by a factor of 5.
And here is this fool who has increased by a factor of 5 the necessary amount of children in his household. What an irresponsible fool. He is making it harder on all of us. He is part of the stupidity of Americans who cannot understand that we need to reduce, not increase our consumption!
That is exactly what Obama did.
Yet nearly every right-side pundit out there focused on the mathematical aspect of this exchange. Some on the right are trying to tear the social issues away from the base, claiming that they do not matter in defeating Obama.
Here is what I’m pointing out. The left does not separate social issues from fiscal issues. Their ideology is complete and intertwined. To them, everything that an individual chooses to do that incurs an increase of production of the whole society is irresponsible and reckless. To them, it does not matter that the man was willing to earn enough to provide for his family, it only matters that he shouldn’t have had such a burdensome family to begin with.
