Well that didn't take long. The Obama campaign released a 60-second ad yesterday using footage from a speech this Monday in which Obama explained why the gas tax holiday is little more than political pandering at its very worst.

The ad, which will run in North Carolina and Indiana over the next week, is posted below. It's one of the best and most effective political ads of the 2008 campaign, if only for the display of refreshing candor and common sense.

You know by now that Hillary Clinton has joined John McCain in supporting a plan to suspend the $18.4-cent federal gas tax and 24.4-cent diesel tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Obama isn't biting: "That's typical of how Washington works," he says in the ad. "There's a problem, everybody's upset about gas prices, let's find some short-term, quick-fix that we can say we did something even though, even though we're not really doing anything."

We're still stunned that Clinton got on board this train, and it appears she's already paying the price. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman returned from his sabbatical hibernation this week with a column that thoroughly dismantled the idea and praised Obama for "resisting this shameful pandering."

Meanwhile, the New York Times editorial board -- the same one that endorsed Clinton less than three months ago -- tore apart the plan, saying it would be "an expensive and environmentally unsound policy that would do nothing to help American drivers."