Olympic Fail

How many twists and turns and flips and leaps of logic did the revelation of John McCain’s Many Houses O’ the Holy inspire? Let’s watch our first contestant.

Tigerhawk:

My third reaction was, hey, how many houses do I own? The answer, it turns out, is pretty complicated, what with property held in trust for my benefit and controlling interests in investments and such. It is either two — the house in Princeton that we live in and the house we are trying to sell — or some larger number up to six, including three houses in the Adirondacks held in a trust among all the descendants of my grandparents and a dual residential/commercial property that we rent.

So, if you put that question to me and I were unprepared for it, I’d probably have to get back to you too. And if I really did not want to be wrong and had a staff with an official position, I would refer you to it. Neither diminishes one iota my love of eating at Applebee’s, the joy I feel walking a boardwalk "down the shore," or my identification, such as it is, with the average Joe.

HEH: A reader emails, "I just want to know if Obama has ‘experimented’ with more illegal substances than McCain owns houses… Then we’ll decide."

Oooooh. He was doing so well until that last strained part comparing drugs and houses. He might want to ix-nay the ug-dray talk when Cindy McCain is mentioned.  Too bad. Blew the dismount.

Next up, JuCo Toynbee, Donald Douglas:

Maybe this tack will play well in stoking latent working class resentments at inflation, housing instability, and rising unemployment. Maybe this meme will stick if the American electorate is undergoing a fundamental shift in ideological orienation(sic) toward the abandonment of free market competition and opportunity-based upward mobility. Or, perhaps Obama’s income-envy will play with those who harbor genuine revolutionary inclinations, and see the Illinois Senator as the vanguard of the proletariat.

More likely, Obama’s attack on McCain’s residential non-recollection reveals the candidate’s subterranean push to resurrect Great Society liberalism in America.

The judges have awarded extra points for "residential non-recollection". Still, the routine was  fairly flaccid although the admission that marrying rich has become the American ideal of "opportunity-based upward mobility" is a quite refreshing.

Okay, your turn, Special Ed:

Kenneth Vogel comes up with the answer at Politico that eluded John McCain in his earlier interview. The actual number of houses owned by McCain is … zero. That’s right — the Senator doesn’t own a single property in his own name:

[...]

The McCains have a pre-nuptial agreement that separates their finances. The “homes”, as Barack Obama and his campaign put it, are mostly investment properties in Cindy McCain’s trust. Since John McCain has no involvement in his wife’s business affairs, he would have little knowledge of the assets in her portfolio.

Of course, a couple of these aren’t investment properties. Cindy bought a condo for their daughter, for instance, and she purchased another in La Jolla for an elderly aunt whom she supports. The McCains live primarily in a 6600-square-foot condo in Phoenix and a three-bedroom condo in Arlington when Congress is in session. They also have a Sedona ranch that again is part of Cindy’s portfolio.

No doubt, McCain’s clumsy answer gave Obama room to poke fun at him as rich and out of touch at the same time. However, McCain himself doesn’t own any property and isn’t “rich”, and Cindy and her family earned their money honestly.

So basically John McCain may live in these houses but he is not of these houses, much like Nick Nolte in Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Interesting and unique if one disregards the fact that hiding behind Cindy McCain isn’t very McMavericky.

Red State takes a stab:

I see that you are making a big deal over the fact that your Republican rival owns several pieces of property, as if it were some major scandal. But if you really want to be accurate, you should note that John McCain owns no property at all, as all those houses are under his wife and children’s names.

I also see that your surrogates are mocking McCain’s age by suggesting that he is forgetful. You can kiss the senior citizen vote goodbye right now.

Or, John McCain is one step away from being homeless veteran living in a refrigerator box in the alley because his wife doesn’t trust him to own property much less share a joint checking account with her. Additional points would have been given if it had been pointed out the the refrigerator box would be only slightly bigger than the cage the former prisoner of war was held in when he was A PRISONER. DURING THE WAR. So close.

But no matter, because the Minnesota ButtMissile walks away with the gold:

The latest campaign kerfuffle is Obama’s effort to make hay out of John McCain’s inability to tell a reporter how many houses he owns. McCain mumbled something about condos and said the reporter should talk to his wife. Predictably, Obama is trying to spin this exchange as showing that McCain is "out of touch."

I can relate, though. For example, if a reporter asked me how many ties I own, there’s no way I could answer. Just like McCain, I’d tell him he has to ask my wife. Likewise if someone wants to know how many Wii games my kids have.

[...]

Touche, I guess. The truth is that McCain isn’t out of touch with "ordinary people" because he’s rich, he’s out of touch with his own domestic arrangements because he cares little about material things, and for many years has devoted his extraordinary energies not to enjoying his wife’s money, but to serving the American people. Given the number of nights he’s spent in hotels or on military bases over the last few years, it’s no wonder he hasn’t seen much of his wife’s condos

I believe that Hinderaker’s "because he cares little about material things, and for many years has devoted his extraordinary energies not to enjoying his wife’s money, but to serving the American people." may go down as the:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

of this campaign.

You have to give Hinderaker credit, nobody  can give a tongue bath like him. But then nobody has quite the limber tongue like him…