Do You Know How Many Houses You Own? (UPDATED with more mockery)

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

If you know how many houses you own, congratulations!  Give yourself a pat on the back, because you’re smarter than a certain senator from Arizona.  When asked in an interview how many houses he owns,

John McCain answered:

I’ll have my staff get to you.

I see two problems in this answer.  The first, obviously, is the question of the actual count.  The second problem is that he apparently needs a staff to do his house-counting.  But when pressed about his thoughts on what constitutes being rich, he (or someone on his staff) came up with:

“I define rich in other ways besides income,” he said. “Some people are wealthy and rich in their lives and their children and their ability to educate them. Others are poor if they’re billionaires.”

Well, Senator, . . . I define “rich” as someone who DOESN’T KNOW HOW MANY HOUSES HE OWNS.

A quick review of McCain’s “man of the people” credentials:

1.  The aforementioned houses.

2.  He wears $500 shoes.  Black leather Salvatore Ferragamo Pregiato moccasins, to be precise.  A must for this season’s on-the-go Maverick who wants to make a statement on the campaign trail.  And what statement does it make? “Who cares how much gasoline costs?  I’ll just walk where I need to go in my $500 shoes!  Or I can ride in my wife’s private jet.”

3.  He is married to an heiress worth an estimated $100 million.  Cindy McCain is the daughter of James Hensley, founder of the Hensley & Co. beer distributor.  Now, John isn’t the first to marry for money, but marrying for money AND beer?  Very handy.

4.  And there is always the classic Keating Five scandal, where McCain spent his valuable senate time trying to cover for his sugar-daddy Charles Keating:

Maybe the voters will understand you took those tiring trips to Charlie’s place in the Bahamas in their behalf. Certainly, they can understand you wanted to take your family along. A senator deserves to travel on private jets, removed from the awful crush of public transportation.

The presidential campaign has, predictably, devolved into a variety of stupid arguments that avoid real issues.  Elitism is the most ridiculous, especially coming from a Maverick who has spent his senate career creatively acquiring the spoils of the ruling class.  And yet we are supposed to believe McCain is the candidate of the middle class, working tirelessly, except on weekends, to address the needs of the common man (but probably not common women).  Spare us any more lectures on who is “too elite” to be our President unless you’re going to let us walk in your shoes and see how the elite really live.

UPDATE:  McCain is having a really bad day on the tubes.  Some samples:

From Wonkette

This is why everybody on John McCain’s staff has quit, twice: because whenever he is asked a question that cannot be answered with “War is hell, and that’s why I have such a raging boner for War,” he punts the question to his poor beleaguered staff, who have to figure out how to answer the question in a way that does not reveal their boss is senile or an asshole.

From Talking Points Memo

It turns out that a few months ago, a McCain family corporation closed on a second multi-million-dollar beach condo in exclusive Coronado, California …

(snip)

…Cindy told her interviewer that the reason they needed a second beach condo in the Coronado building was that the first was too crowded because her kids were staying there and as a result she “couldn’t get in the place.”

Cindy continued: “So I bought another one.”

McCain spokesman Brian Rogers has calmly responded to the uproar:

The McCain campaign was in full damage-control mode as the housing story took off today. 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.

(snip)

“In terms of who’s an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type.”

ooooohhhhh . . . that would make a really snappy bumper sticker:

John McCain:  Not an Arugula-Eating, Pointy Headed Professor-Type