Jonas Rushman – 8/15/08

This page was last updated on August 17, 2008.

Politics as usual from Republicans; Jonas M. Rushman; Beaver County Times; August 15, 2008.

This is the 10^th letter during the last several years I’ve noticed from Mr. Rushman. In addition to being a consistent Bush basher, two of those letters claimed there is no liberal bias in the media and that “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a good source of documented facts. In his most recent previous letter, Mr. Rushman told us “We have become the USSR.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“The Republican slime machine is in full regalia.”

[RWC] Given Mr. Rushman’s history of name-calling in his letters, his referring to anyone as a “slime machine” is a hoot. It’s predictable, however.

“I have been reading letters stating that Barack Obama’s energy plan consists solely of making sure your tires are properly inflated.

“That’s a misrepresentation generated by the right. Obama’s energy plan focuses on clean coal technology, further development of plug-in hybrid cars, commercialization of wind and solar power, and other measures.

“He also provided an example of some common sense measures for the meantime. By making sure our tires are properly inflated and our engines properly tuned, we could save more than 3 million gallons of gasoline per year.”

[RWC] Mr. Rushman, it was a little more than “an example of common sense [sic] measures.” Mr. Obama claimed, “But we could save all the oil that they’re talking about getting off drilling - if everybody was just inflating their tires? And getting regular tune-ups? You’d actually save just as much.” (8/1/08 speech in Springfield, MO.) Even if Mr. Obama’s assertion were true, how does that justify not increasing domestic oil and gas production?

Regarding Mr. Rushman’s claim of saving “more than 3 million gallons of gasoline per year,” I believe he made a typo somewhere. In 2007 we consumed in excess of 142 billion gallons of gasoline. That makes Mr. Rushman’s “3 million gallons” only 0.002% of our gasoline consumption. Translated into crude oil production (and assuming the 2007 45% mogas yield), it would save only 435 barrels/day.

“The ignorant and gullible choose to believe and repeat the RNC’s whopper that this is the entirety of Obama’s energy policy.”

[RWC] Read Mr. Rushman’s body of work and you’ll find you are “ignorant and gullible” if you don’t “choose to believe” whatever Mr. Rushman believes.

If the RNC is claiming properly inflated tires is “the entirety of Obama’s energy policy” as Mr. Rushman asserts, they need to update their website (www.gop.org). I just searched this website and the only mention I found was this excerpt from a single sentence: “Senator Obama unveiled the newest ‘bold’ plank of his energy platform.” (This excerpt pointed to a link on a Time/CNN website.) Wow, that was brutal! Since the sentence refers to properly inflated tires as a “plank of his energy platform,” doesn’t this mean the RNC is saying tire inflation is only part of Mr. Obama’s plan? That would appear to kill Mr. Rushman’s complaint.

“Then comes the parroting of the fable about immediate relief at the pumps by drilling off shore. The government’s own Energy Information Administration estimates that if the go-ahead were given right now for off-shore drilling, it would be 2030 before there would be enough oil flowing to have a ‘significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices.’”

[RWC] Folks like Mr. Rushman like to use the straw man of “immediate relief at the pump by drilling off shore.” I don’t know to whom Mr. Rushman listens, but I haven’t heard anyone with a smidgen of credibility make this claim.

“I wonder why they don’t mention the fact that John McCain in 2003 and 2005 voted against raising the corporate average fuel economy to 36 mpg by 2015. McCain stated on July 7, ‘Our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been 30 years in the making.’ However, his attack ads claim that Obama is to blame. How can this be?”

[RWC] What Mr. Rushman failed to note is both bills in 2003 and 2005 included a bunch of stuff, not just CAFE standards. In both cases, 2/3’s of the Senate voted against the amendments. Since Mr. McCain joined with John Kerry (D-MA) in 2002 to propose higher CAFE standards, it’s likely Mr. McCain’s opposition to the 2003 and 2005 amendments had nothing to do with the CAFE provisions.

Mr. Rushman obviously sees ads I don’t. I haven’t seen any McCain ads claim Mr. Obama is to blame for our current “dangerous dependence on foreign oil.” If there are such ads, obviously they are wrong.

“These facts are verifiable at FactCheck.org and Politico.com.