Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The political geniuses at the McCain campaign have decided on their latest line of attack on Barack Obama. Apparently, they are now calling him "Barack The Redistributor" (this, of course, is in keeping with the "Joe The Plumber", "Tito The Builder", "Dora The Explorer" theme).

But, unless I missed something, isn’t this dangerously close to "Cindy The Distributor"? Does the McCain campaign really want to remind the electorate that Cindy McCain, "Cindy The Distributor", is the chairwoman of a $340 million beer distributor? Is this really an effective closing argument for John McCain?

Enough with the cartoon characters, John The Erratic.

It is a common trick corrupt politicians in the Third World use. Often they do not buy expensive big ticket items. They don’t even accept them as gifts. It often happens that the car they are driving belongs to a businessman that needed a favor – the politician is simply storing it for the businessman. Sometimes furniture in the house they live in may belong to another person as well. The furniture is not a gift – it is there because the owner of the furniture needed a place to put it. It is all very innocent, they say.

Last week, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska testified at his trial. I chuckled when I heard about his testimony. It was very familiar:

Stevens has said he never sought gifts and wouldn’t even accept a free lunch, much less expensive remodeling services. But prosecutors say he had a history of accepting gifts — including an expensive massage chair from a friend — and omitting them from the financial disclosure forms.

He said he considered that chair a loan.

"And the chair is still at your house?" prosecutor Brenda Morris asked.

"Yes," Stevens said.

"How is that not a gift?"

"He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift," Stevens said. "He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift. We have lots of things in our house that don’t belong to us."

Playing to the jury, Morris appeared confused.

"So, if you say it’s not a gift, it’s not a gift?" she said.

"I refused it as a gift," Stevens replied. "I let him put it in our basement at his request."

Senator Stevens would fit right in as a Third World politician. The trick is to never accept it as your own. When discovered, you simply give the item back since it never was a gift and never belonged to you.

Today Sarah Palin spoke out on her $150,000 shopping spree. She declared, "Those clothes, they are not my property." The clothes belong to the RNC, and apparently she was just holding them. She said that she is not taking them with her after the campaign:

"This whole thing with the wardrobe, you know I have tried to just ignore it because it is so ridiculous, but I am glad now that Elisabeth brought it up, cause it gives me an opportunity without the filter of the media to get to tell you the whole clothes thing," she said.

"Those clothes, they are not my property. Just like the lighting and the staging and everything else that the RNC purchased, I’m not taking them with me. I am back to wearing my own clothes from my favorite consignment shop in Anchorage, Alaska. You’d think — not that I would even have to address the issue because, as Elisabeth is suggesting, the double standard here it’s — gosh, we don’t even want to waste our time."

Like Ted Stevens, Sarah Palin seems entirely comfortable using things that do not belong to her. When exposed, she can always return them. She fits right into the corrupt Alaska political culture she claims she is reforming.

Her words and deeds would make Third World politicians smile.

I don’t know what a Diva is. I am not sure if paying $150,000 for clothes, paying over $22,000 for two weeks of makeup, or $10,000 for a fortnight of hair styling makes one a Diva. So, I will rely on the McCain campaign to explain it to me. Of Sarah Palin, a McCain advisor who wishes to remain anonymous had this to say:

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

This after The Politico reported that Palin had begun to "go rogue":

Four Republicans close to Palin said she has decided increasingly to disregard the advice of the former Bush aides tasked to handle her, creating occasionally tense situations as she travels the country with them. Those Palin supporters, inside the campaign and out, said Palin blames her handlers for a botched rollout and a tarnished public image — even as others in McCain’s camp blame the pick of the relatively inexperienced Alaska governor, and her public performance, for McCain’s decline.

"She’s lost confidence in most of the people on the plane," said a senior Republican who speaks to Palin, referring to her campaign jet. He said Palin had begun to "go rogue" in some of her public pronouncements and decisions.

"I think she’d like to go more rogue," he said. 

I am guessing that being mavericky is ok in a team of mavericks, but going rogue is apparently bad. This may be what Chuck Todd described last week as "pulling a Bulworth". Todd, in a remarkable bit of candid television, described the palpable tension between John McCain and Sarah Palin. It appears that his on-air comments have now opened the floodgates at Camp McCain. Now the McCain campaign is gone from pulling a Bullworth to full bore Lord Of The Flies.

[Via Jake Tapper]

John McCain now calls Barack Obama a "socialist". Back in 2000, long before McCain gave up his honor for ambition, he defended middle class tax cuts against charges of "socialism".

Here’s the transcript from October 12, 2000 on the Hardball College Tour:

STUDENT: Why is it that someone like my father who goes to school for 13 years gets penalized in a huge tax bracket because he’s a doctor. Why is that – why does he have to pay higher taxes than everybody else? Just because he makes more money. How is that fair?

MCCAIN: I think you’re questioning, questioning the fundamentals of a progressive tax system where people who make more money pay more in taxes than a flat across the board percentage. I think it’s to some degree because we feel obviously that wealthy people can afford more. We have over the years beginning with John F. Kennedy reduced some of those marginal tax rates to make them less onerous. I believe that when you really look at the tax code the very wealthy because they can afford tax lawyers and all kinds of loopholes really don’t pay as much as you think they do, when you just look at the percentages. And I think middle income Americans, working Americans, who when you count in payroll taxes, sales taxes, mortgage — all of the, all of the taxes that working Americans pay — I think you would also think that they also deserve very significant relief.

…

STUDENT: I still don’t see how that’s fair…aren’t we getting closer and closer to Socialism and stuff…?

MCCAIN: Look, here’s what I really believe: That when you are, when you reach a certain level of comfort, there’s nothing wrong with paying somewhat more. But at the same time it shouldn’t be totally out of proportion.

McCain added that the "first people who deserve a tax cut are working Americans…and they’re the ones I would support tax cuts for first."

Now, John McCain and Sarah Palin are mocking what McCain once defended as "socialism". McCain is now on his "Joe The Plumber" tour arguing against the very thing he believed in more honorable times.

The press needs to ask John McCain how he squares his current position with his earlier beliefs. Someone should ask John McCain whether he used to be a "socialist".