Sink the Scaramouche!

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Over at MSNBC, Howard Mortman torpedoes the gas-guzzling-on-the-high-seas antics of the people's candidate, John F. Kerry, who has said, "When gas hits $2 a gallon, we just don't pay for it at the pump. We pay for it in our towns and our schools and our grocery stores." What's more, writes Mortman, Kerry "is a strong advocate of energy independence and raising the corporate average fuel economy standards (CAF?) for cars."

It's fun to learn, then, that Kerry runs around in a 42-foot speedboat called the "Scaramouche." The nautical mileage on that baby? Probably less than 1 mpg, which does little to reduce our "dangerous" dependency on foreign oil.

The Scaramouche story not only comes close to turning an Onion parody ("KERRY MAKES WHISTLE-STOP TOUR FROM DECK OF YACHT") into reality, it jibes almost perfectly with stories about George H.W. Bush from 14 years ago:

In August 1990, during America?s other major deployment to the Persian Gulf, then-President Bush asked Americans to conserve energy. Midway through his 25-day vacation in Maine, a reporter asked President Bush if conserving energy included Fidelity, his recreational speedboat. Bush answered by urging Americans to keep their vacation plans, saying, "I'm going to keep using my boat, and I hope the rest of America will prudently recreate. "

Whole thing here.