Occasionally, the formulaic Saturday radio addresses by the President and his designated Democratic “responders,” provide telling glimpses of our current political follies.

This past weekend, the Democrats chose Washington State’s junior Senator, the embarrassingly inept Maria Cantwell, to deliver their partisan preachment.

In the course of her dreary address about energy policy, she revealed her underlying contempt for her fellow citizens. “America deserves more fuel-efficient cars,” she announced with peerless eloquence, and then added: “But the only way consumers are going to get more out of a tank of gas is if the president and his party help deliver votes in a narrowly divided Congress.”

In other words, hard-pressed Americans who note the high price of gas at the pump, can’t do anything for themselves to save money? We can’t purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles until the Republicans vote for new regulations forcing us to do so?

And auto designers and engineers and inventors can’t possibly create the “more fuel efficient cars” Senator Cantwell says we deserve, unless bureaucrats give the orders? The prospect of earning billions in profits by building such vehicles won’t be enough without a vote of Congress?

Senator Cantwell no doubt speaks for many of her fellow Democrats in her startling suggestion that the American people can’t be trusted—even on an important and very personal decision like buying a car – and instead need to count on politicians to make wise choices for them.