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What car would
a dead guy drive?

During a recent serious discussion on a cable business news channel on ways to deal with soaring gasoline prices, a presumably high-priced energy analyst seriously said, "What kind of a car would Ben Franklin drive?"

What kind of a mealy-mouthed, weasle-waffling, Harvey Milquetoast, punt-on-third-down cop-out is that?

What kind of car would Ben Franklin drive? The kind pulled by horses, idiot.

The answer this cutesy question is supposed to elicit is that Ben Franklin, were he alive today, would drive a politically correct, scientifically advanced vehicle powered by hydrogen, recycled french-fry oil, electricity, good will to all men on Earth and, do doubt, assisted by a wind-powered kite.

Thanks, Mr. Analyst, but that doesn't help us here in Hawaii, where the prospect of $5-a-gallon gas is stalking us like a crazed cheetah, ready to pounce and rip out our innards, not to mention the innards of our wallets. See, we don't have any kite-powered vehicles, or french-fry-oil vehicles, either. We're all pretty much stuck with the kind that use regular old gasoline, which, as noted by Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies, is made from "bubbling crude, oil, that is, black gold, Texas tea."

So asking what kind of a car Ben Franklin drives is not only a stupid way of trying to force us to look at alternative means of transportation, the premise is entirely bogus. Because Ben Franklin was a player, dude. He might have been on the hefty side, physically, but he was a globe-trotting, womanizing party-animal, sort of a Henry Kissinger with bifocals. Get serious. If Ben Franklin were around today, he'd be driving a Maserati 3200 GT with a blonde in his lap and a bottle of Cristal champagne in the glove compartment. Ben Franklin might have said "a penny saved is a penny earned," but he said it while dashing around Paris in the fanciest carriages on the market.

The cutesy CNBC analyst's Ben Franklin question actually was a play on a previous silly question by conservation extremists who asked, "What kind of a car would Jesus drive?"

The kind pulled by donkeys, idiot.

Actually, Jesus rode ON a donkey, albeit a borrowed donkey. But back then, a donkey was one of the fastest forms of personal transportation, second only to the horse. So, by extrapolation, if Jesus were here today, he'd travel by the second-fastest form of personal transportation, a borrowed 550-horsepower Corvette Z60. (Hey! Was that Benny who just blew by us in the Maserati? And who was that chick in his lap?)

If conservationists insist on using dead people from history to make a point, they'd be better off choosing someone like Henry David Thoreau, the insufferable, penny-pinching weirdo from Walden Pond.

What kind of car would Henry David Thoreau drive? You're right. He wouldn't drive at all. He'd be holed up in a forest cabin with Unabomber Ted Kaczynski scratching out an anti-technology manifesto on tree bark.

For us in Hawaii, the only recourse we have to these crazy gas prices is to drive less. Reduce gas consumption and the price will have to come down. That, or else get one of those cars that you drive with your feet. That's the kind of car Fred Flintstone would drive.