I was doing a bit of traveling this week on Interstate 5 in California. If you take a look at a map of California you will see in the center of it this big flat valley. It’s flanked on the right by the Sierra Nevada Mountains and on the left by coastal mountain ranges. I suppose you could call this the Kansas of California.

California is often stereotyped as Hollywood, vegetarian, athletic, fake boobs, surfing, environmentalism, and lest I forget commie pinko hippie liberal. Well to anyone that thinks that I say drive the I-5 through the central valley. It’s a slice right out of the mid-west. Cattle ranches, dairy farms, agriculture, oil drilling, and trucking dominate the landscape. Pull in to any truck stop and you will see people dressed like Larry the Cable Guy. On the counter you can buy any one of the top selling country CD’s. On the FM dial country outnumbers rock 5 to 1.

The accent is a bit of a mix of mid-west and Californian. This is a legacy left over from the Great Depression when farmers devastated by the Dust Bowls headed to California to find work. These workers were often treated poorly and paid next to nothing to pick fruit and harvest crops. Many families over time were able to settle in and make a new life for themselves. Living in California all my life I have to say that California is as much Hollywood as it is Agriculture.

That said I was shocked and appalled on my 16 hour drive at not being able to find one single drop of Progressive Radio anywhere to be heard. Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura were on two sometimes three different stations. The remaining stations were either sports, Hannity, O’Reilly, Savage, Laura Ingraham, or any of the number of Limbaugh clones that exist these days.

With the exception of one guy telling horror stories about how the Chinese make women get abortions and how Onward Christian Soldiers we must stop this, everyone else was talking about oil.

The big talking point was how the Democrats are to blame for high oil prices and if we could just drill for more oil we’d all be ok, Hummers all around. One guy tried to be fair saying he had heard that the oil companies had leases on land that they were not drilling on and said he would find out about it. He was going to have on an “Industry Expert” who he then edified for about 15 minutes. This was the guy to ask. He had 20 years experience as an oil industry expert. He’s even been on the TV many times to talk about oil. So this guy just had to know.

Well of course it’s still the Democrat's fault for not letting the oil companies drill in ANWR and offshore. Never mind that it was Bush Sr who put in the place the ban on offshore oil drilling. And all those 75,000 acres of oil leases? Well, what the Democrats won’t tell you is that the oil companies have spent millions of millions of dollars surveying the land seeing if there is any oil. And if they don’t drill on it, it means that it’s not ‘profitable’ to pump the oil. Stupid Democrats don’t know anything.

I can tell you that on this trip I passed countless number of oil pumps sitting there motionless like stationary dinosaurs on the landscape. I kept screaming in my head “drill for more oil mother fuckers!! Drill it!! You have the pumps sitting idle right there!! Drill that fucking oil!!”

It was pretty scary to think about all these right wing radio show hosts all nearly in unison blaming the Democrats for high oil prices knowing that I was surrounded by truck drivers who were likely listening to these idiots and even more pissed off than I am about high gas prices. What’s worse is there was no counter argument to be heard. If someone wants the truth these days they literally have to seek it out.

McCain now has a new ad out blaming Barack Obama for high oil prices. Some how now Obama is solely to blame for high gas prices. I haven’t seen enough of the commercial to know what the McCain camp is basing their assertions on. If it’s anything like most of their assertions then it’s based on fantasy.

Now the McCain camp is furious that Obama’s overseas trip is getting so much coverage. Careful what you wish for Grandpa. You were the one who dared Obama to go to Iraq in the first place. Now McCain is reduced to nearly throwing temper tantrums shouting that he was right along on Iraq while Obama as been wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Never mind the reality. Grandpa 100 years in Iraq McCain has always been in favor of conditions based timetables for withdraw from Iraq. What I find disturbing is how the media repeats these Grandpa McCain claims such as “I’ve been right on Iraq all along!” without even challenging them. It’s pretty damn easy to rack up the video tape and show where McCain said any talk of withdraw was surrender or how staying in Iraq for 100 years was fine with him.

The other thing I couldn’t believe was how the Bush Administration behaved over al-Malaki’s Der Spiegel interview. Malaki said he agreed with Obama’s 16 month time frame for withdraw from Iraq. The Bush Administration quickly countered by saying Malaki was mistranslated. Well that was a blatant lie and they knew it. They just wanted to buy some time as they keep getting out maneuvered by Obama. Der Spiegel sent the tape of the interview to the New York Times who checked it and found that the translation was correct.

I know the country is bad off. I know the Bush Administration has reeked havoc all across America and the world. I understand that through all of this some people still think it’s the Democrat’s fault. I know there are some people who think that Obama will make things even worse while McCain will make things better. Of course the opposite is true.

But I must say I still find it refreshing to watch McCain and BushCo get played for chumps by the Obama campaign. Republicans are having a hard time controlling the media message even with all their influence. Obama’s Iraq trip is pulling away from them all as a sovereign and free Iraq finds itself agreeing more with Obama’s policies than McCain's or Bush’s.

Obama called their bluff and so far has stayed alive.