Yes, it’s true – we should all check our tire pressure regularly. Our vehicles will be more fuel efficient if we do so. We should also wear our galoshes in inclement weather. What we don’t need is a president to remind us of these things. Take it from someone who lived for 12 years under Michael Dukakis’ reign of error in Massachusetts – the voters eventually come to resent this kind of nagging behavior in a chief executive. Think of it as bully pulpit abuse.

This kind of conduct in a politician is especially galling when the politician substitutes it for the kind of unique contribution that only our leadership class can make. My mother in-law can nag me about my tire pressure. But my mother in-law lacks the ability to green-light more nuclear power plants or offshore drilling. Our politicians do have several things they could do to alleviate our energy problems, but hectoring us about tire pressure should rank well down the list.

Actually, it shouldn’t be on the list at all. As other conservatives have pointed out, if $4 gas hasn’t given you religion regarding your tire pressure, a guilt trip from Barack Obama is unlikely to do the trick. But efficacy aside, there’s something supremely off-putting about this kind of leadership. The reason Michael Dukakis became so fiercely unpopular in Massachusetts is because his subjects got rather sick of his governing assumption that the citizenry consisted of benighted halfwits who didn’t know enough to put on a jacket when it got cold without their governor telling them to do so.

The bad news for Republicans is that it took over a decade for the people of Massachusetts to get fed up with Dukakis. But news cycles spin faster now and perceptions change more rapidly. What’s more, there’s but a thin line separating an inspiring leader from a tiresome nag.