Obama doubles down on dishonesty

In his speech to the Democratic convention, Barack Obama claimed that John McCain considers people who make up to $5 million a year to be middle class. This claim was based on a joke McCain cracked at the Saddleback forum:

Rick Warren:

Ok, on taxes, define “rich.” Everybody talks about taxing the rich, but not the poor, the middle class. At what point – give me a number, give me a specific number – where do you move from middle class to rich?

John McCain:

So, I think if you are just talking about income, how about $5 million?

(LAUGHTER)

But seriously, I don’t think you can – I don’t think seriously that – the point is that I’m trying to make here, seriously — and I’m sure that comment will be distorted — but the point is that we want to keep people’s taxes low and increase revenues.

Obama did distort the comment, and the Washington Post editorial page — hardly an anti-Obama forum — criticized him for doing so.

Now the Obama campaign, sensing that the tide is turning against and perhaps temporarily leery of going after Sarah Palin, is using McCain’s joke against him in a new ad. The ad, which ran in the Washington DC area last night, begins by ridiculing McCain for not knowing that he owns seven houses. That’s fair enough — a person should know how many houses he owns and McCain didn’t — but it’s also pretty trivial.

Next, the ad claims that McCain believes the middle class extends to those who make $5 million a year. That’s just dishonest.

I guess this is what Obama had in mind when he said, pathetically, that he would not be “bullied.”

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