This morning, as the McCain house gaffe was first breaking, John Cole wrote with tongue in cheek:
I fully expect Bob Schieffer to dedicate his Sunday morning speech to the fact that McCain is just too busy defending us from evil to count his houses, and plus, why are you attacking his integrity? Don’t you know he was a POW?I laughed when I read that. I shouldn't have.
The McCain campaign was in full damage-control mode as the housing story took off today.That sure is a nifty card to be able to play over and over and over again. It gets you out of all kinds of troublesome situations. Because McCain was a POW:
Rogers tried to play down the story, saying that reports of the many McCain houses were overstated. "The reality is they have some investment properties and stuff. It's not as if he lives in ten houses. That's just not the case," Rogers said. "The reality is they have four that actually could be considered houses they could use."
Those four include an apartment in Arlington, a ranch in Sedona, and two condos, in California and Phoenix, he said. The others include "some investment properties and things like that." He also added: "This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," referring to the prisoner of war camp that McCain was in during the Vietnam War.
- Nobody can question his qualifications to be commander in chief
- Nobody can suggest that he broke the rules at the Saddleback Church forum
- He is excused for supporting Bush's torture regime
- It was okay for him to cheat on his first wife
Now we learn that it is okay for McCain to champion policies that will hurt working families, while he can't even count how many houses he owns, because he was a prisoner of war 40 years ago.
I'd say that Senator McMaverick's all-purpose POW excuse has finally jumped the shark. If he tries to use it again, he will have earned the ridicule that greets it.
