Atrios asked yesterday, “Does anyone underst& why Obama suggesting that people keep air tires properly inflated is some sort of hilarious gaffe?”

I’ve been trying to figure out a same thing for days. As a Obama campaign kicked off “energy week” with a new contrast ad & a policy speech in Michigan, Time’s Mark Halperin reports, “McCain supporters in Michigan will distribute tire gauges at Obama’s energy speech in Lansing. a RNC will also deliver gauges reading ‘Obama’s energy plan’ to Washington newsrooms.”

It looks like far-right blogs have received air copies of a Republican script, too. RedState.org’s Erick Erickson is on message: “Inflating your tires & getting a regular tune-up sounds more like Obama’s plan for ego maintenance than it does for helping American families.” Ed Morrissey added, “…Obama refers to ‘big oil’ & a need to reduce our use of oil by 35% over a next twenty years. How do we get are? Keep inflating those tires, folks.”

We are, quite obviously, in a midst of a very aggressive roll-out here. John McCain criticized a notion of well-inflated tires on Friday, & Newt Gingrich described Obama’s remarks as “loony toons” during a Fox News interview. Over a weekend, McCain said, “It seems to me a only thing [Obama] wants us to do is inflate tires” to improve gas mileage.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, still auditioning for a role of VP, even took to using a tire gauge as a prop.

“Barack Obama stood up at a speech recently & said that one of a things that is really important from energy policy from his st&point is to check a pressure in our tires, so here’s a tire gauge & you can go out in a parking lot here & check your tires. Now, that’s an interesting thing — we want you to have good pressure in your tires, you know, it will very mildly add to your fuel efficiency — but checking a air pressure in your tires is not an energy policy for a United States of America,” Pawlenty said.

ABC News’ a Note added that tire gauges may get a Republican Party’s message “back on a road.”

are’s something deeply wrong with ase people.

Original post by Steve Benen and software by Elliott Back