"What I don't want to do is for the best to be the enemy of the good," he said. "And if we can come up with a genuine bipartisan compromise, in which I have to accept some things that I don't like or the Democrats have to accept some things that they don't like in exchange for actually moving us in the direction of actual energy independence, then that's something I'm open to."

Sounds reasonable doesn’t it? (link)

So does this (link):

The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.

"I have said in the past - and I'll repeat again - that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently…

this is not a position Obama adopted just for the presidential campaign. He voiced the same concerns about reparations during his successful run for the Senate in 2004.

Yesterday Obama said:

"There are things that you can do individually though to save energy," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said. "Making sure your tires are properly inflated, simple thing, 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 could actually save just as much."

Today, Limbaugh and others ridiculed the comment:

"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"

I accept that some might find the statement laughable because convincing everyone to diligently keep their tires properly inflated is not practical. Fair enough, but that’s not what Obama was intending to communicate anyway. I figure he was making the point that conservation and improved efficiency will inevitably be part of the energy solution, as will technology advances and development of other energy sources. As a statement of fact, Obama’s probably doesn’t hold up exactly…a careful examination indicates proper tire inflation would probably only account for 2/3 of offshore drilling (link), but I’d hardly say that’s a laughable comparison (link) and would also point out that Republican governors of both California and Florida recently (one of who is on the short list for the Republican VP spot) (link):

…appealed to those with the real power to make change — average citizens — to drive slower, keep engines tuned and tires properly inflated, to buy hybrids and lower overall consumption.

Of course, that quote hardly a complete summary of Obama’s energy policy. If you care to be informed, a thorough description of his energy policy can be found here: link