"...where is the gasoline rationing? Oh, but that would be inconvenient, and might make the President's oil friends unhappy."

Why does federal govt need to pass laws reducing consumer use of gasoline?
There is no shortages of gasoline. There is no wartime need of reducing public consumption. The miltary doesn't have any shortage of gasoline, miltary assets aren't being used up trying defend shipping lanes for this public consumption, etc, etc.

Now, less stupid idea, would passing some law that oil can only be imported from certain countries. This of course has problems- which countries do you put on the list? Symbolically one could put Iran and the list- we probably don't import any significant amount from Iran [Iranians probably make some effort to stop this- this could cause the Iranian some problems and we could encourage other countries in which it would more significant attempt to reduce the amount of oil they import from Iran]. But doing this kind of thing against Iran is probably something will do if Iran continues to violate the NPT- so stay tune.

But in practical terms what would be better is to encourage oil production in the US or even countries like Canada and/or Mexico. In the US we have lots of potential in off shore drilling and of course in Alaska [and probably off shore in Alaska].
But what is more significant about oil is the countries more dependent upon oil than US- Japan, India, China, ect, so that even if the US imported no oil, it is still a significant problem for the US [our world is interconnected].

But you already know all this, if a dem was the President you wouldn't making such stupid proposal. And of course if Bush was as unpopular as you imagine, why would most people wait around for the federal govt to such a thing- there is nothing stopping various states from rationing gasolines- assuming it was anywhere supported by the public. And of course the public wouldn't need any kind of state action, it could simply use less gasoline- it could do this on individual basis or could "get the message out"- the media could be supportive of such an idea- assuming the media had any credibility.

Let me give you example of how any State could do this and politically not lose much by doing something this stupid. They could require govt workers to state how much gasoline they need to buy per month/year, and also explain why they need this much- for example is there anyway they could use less gasoline by say not driving to work on all work days- and what would need to be done [and how much it would cost] in order to do this. From such a database they could cherry pick situations in which would cost the least money [and save the most gasoline] in order to implement. And addition to short term, include long term planning these measures.
The private sector is already going in this direction [though the concern isn't on gasoline, but what more important- time] but if the govt did a good job of doing such a program [and of course the pigs will be flying], then the private sector can learn from this and apply them in the private sector.