Gail Collins all but endorses Obama

In her Op-Ed piece in today's NY Times, Gail Collins all but endorsed Barack Obama.

Writing about the proposed gas tax holidy, Collins calls it

the dumbest idea in the campaign.

She excoriates both McCain and Clinton for pandering a) when they know it is a bad idea and b) doing so because they know it will never be implemented.

About McCain's proposal, she points out that he proposes to pay for it by cutting pork.  

These are presumably different pork-barrel projects from the ones McCain is going to cut in order to pay for $613 billion in permanent tax cuts.

With regard to Clinton's proposal, she calls it much more fiscally responsible, as she pays for it with a windfall profits tax on oil companies.  By doing so,

she turns a proposal that was unlikely to ever get passed into one that could not make it through the Senate if Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy both rose from the dead and hand-carried it there.

There are few things more satisfying than taking a strong stand in favor of something that is never going to happen. Free pander!

Of Obama, she says that he

believes voters want a sensible, less-divisive political dialogue, that the whole process can become more honorable if the right candidate leads the way.

She finishes by calling on us to

root for the Democrat whose vision of the political process comes closest to matching your own.

Let's see:  do I want someone who says, "I will give you pie", and then offers me some unbaked crust.  Or someone who says, "Pie may sound nice, but a)you have to eat your vegetables, b) pie is not good for you and c) we cannot afford pie"