Jimmy Carter — the peak oil president

The timing is extraordinarily appropriate, and not just because energy is the campaign issue of the week. The wave of Republican mockery currently assaulting Barack Obama’s recommendation that Americans properly inflate their tires flows squarely within the tradition of scorn and derision that conservatives have heaped on Carter for decades — in part because of his call for conservation and sacrifice in 1977.

But the speech holds up pretty darn well today, even as right-wing flailing increasingly manifests itself, to borrow a slam made by Obama against his critics on Tuesday, as risibly “ignorant.” I particularly liked the following passage, if only because of its prescience.

Salon