Does Meghan McCain's graduation-gift apartment (bought, outright) count?

Oh, this one has stung 'em.

Agreed. They're on the heels at a bad time. People are about to start tuning in.

There's even a couple of different lines of attack here. One is that McCain has so many houses he can't remember how many he owns. The other is that McCain can't remember how many houses he owns.

It dovetails so nicely with Gramm's comments and McCain's $5m=rich flub.

It's like finding that one puzzle piece that fits so perfectly, the whole thing practically assembles itself.

That there him number one fine last sentence, Ezra!

Don't forget that several of the houses 'don't count' because they are actually guest-houses.

No, no, no, that isn't a house... it's a guest-house. You know, a house we never use but keep around just in case. Like an office with a hide-a-bed.

Oh, and several houses have extra-guest-houses. Imagine the embarrassment if someone wanted to visit and the guest house was already being used...

And emergency extra-extra-guest-houses, we have those too...

Haha. This is the biggest Republican pwning I've seen in quite some time. They don't know how to respond at ALL to this.

I can imagine John McCain, his campaign manager, Charlie Gibson, and Chris Matthews having this conversation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A77ABcfMCQg

I never owned a house in my life. I've been a POW for 72 years. My opponent owns a house, which is why he gets testy when I mention that I don't live in my own house which I don't own in a maverick way.

JS McCain

Given at his Seventh Residence, this day being August 21st, in the year of Our Lord 2008

POW trumps all!!!

Hey, my captcha has "kkk" in it -- very subtle, Ezra!
;-)

How long will it be until we learn that John McCain is a clean-cut all-American veteran who lives in a cardboard box near the Senate House?

John McCain did not lie. He was a POW. Anyway, palaces aren't houses. Every patriotic American knows that1

A commenter over at TPM said that the question really should be, "Senator, how many of your houses would have to foreclose before you'd become homeless?"

...and I agree. Someone, ask him!!

This seems to be a really desperate attempt prompted by Obama's underperfomance.

No legs.

This seems to be a really desperate attempt prompted by Obama's underperfomance.

No legs.

Posted by: El Viajero | August 21, 2008 3:03 PM

Underperformance is more likely in an older male. but you know all about that, don'tyou El Viagrao?

Zing! House-gate has legs!

Which of McCain's houses do you lick the latrines out at, El V? Or don't you remember? Do you have to ask your staff?

Every campaign needs to have a member of the inner circle who's in charge of keeping track of what the stereotype of the candidate is, and his job needs to be to vet public statements to ensure that they do not "play to stereotpye." (The sort of person who would have told Kerry not to engage in windsurfing, for example) McCain's campaign needs someone who's going to tell his staff, "you're using the 'he was a POW defense' too much, and you're starting to sound like a parody of yourselves."

Giuliani needed a guy to tell him that, as well, but I'm glad he didn't get one.

At what point does this guy so overuse his experience as a POW that it becomes irreversibly cheapened as a political cudgel?

Sadly, with fawners like Matthews and his ilk, probably never.

Here's another reason why this isn't good for McCain: this is just the type of blunder that can be easily synthesized into a joke on Leno, Conan, and elsewhere, so that even those who aren't paying much attention can receive the information. And it can probably come in one of two forms: either that he is this incredibly wealthy person (out of touch!) or that he's so old he can't remember basic facts. With recent polls showing something like 40% having misgivings about his age, examples of his not being able to remember something that for most people is taken for granted can't help much.

Alas, Ezra, the Washington Putditocracy does not agree that this will help Obama much, viz, Paul Kane in the Washington Post "Post Political Hour" this a.m.:
'Potomac, Md.: Why are people wasting time talking about whether the McCains own six or eight houses? That's a credit to the McCains for having the foresight to host the media in comfort when they come out for BBQs and to review the campaign's talking points. Focus on what's important, like why Obama looks French.

Paul Kane: I'll take just one question on this whole manufuactured flap. These sorts of little things that we in the media spend lots of time running around in circles panting and moaning about, they usually add up to nothing at the polls. Every time something happens of this level to Obama (Rev. Wright, "bitter") the response from Dems is that in really tough times like this the American voters are not going to be swayed by these little things and the attacks and the negativity that follows, the voters will focus on the really big issues. That's what comes from Democrats. So, does the same not apply to something like this?

At this point in his national political career McCain is not going to be transformed into a super rich elitist. He's just not, the voters won't buy it. It has the potential to reinforce questions about his age, I guess. '
( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/08/17/DI2008081701263.html
)
Only an unhinged blogger would say Mr. Kane was a mite testy over this lob at the Beloved Maverick....

He should have used
"This Conversation Doesn't Help [Michelle Obama's] Kids"

At what point does this guy so overuse his experience as a POW that it becomes irreversibly cheapened as a political cudgel?

Offhand, I'd say in 1982, with his very first TV ad as a candidate for office:

Actually, to call the production an "ad" doesn't do it justice. It was more like a mini-documentary, stretching some two minutes in length. The first half builds chronologically to McCain's POW experience. We see footage of McCain descending haltingly from an Air Force transport plane after touching down in the United States. "I certainly don't recommend the treatment," he says over the video. "But, at the same time, I've certainly become a better and enriched person for having had the experience in a myriad of ways." The ad closes with McCain driving along a desert highway, reflecting on his adopted home. "I can tell you, if you go for six years without being able to see the sunset or the sunrise, like I did, you can truly appreciate the beauty of what we have."

Mccain has been trying to paint himself as Joe American, just a regular guy like you and me. You and I should be able to go down to the local dive bar, order a PBR and EXPECT to see John McCain sloberring into his beer right next to us.

So he downplays his net worth all he can. His wife? thats out of bounds.. her taxes thats sheltered.. I mean out of bounds and not ethical to talk about.

Handfuls of holding companies with 10s or more houses worth millions in a 1/2 dozen states.. 'hmm how to get out of that one. No real good way... I know I dont remember how many!'

Yah, right.

Damn man, the concern trolls are out in full force all over the lefty blogworld today on this. There must have been a "man all battle stations!" order sent out from wingnut troll central HQ.
In McBush's defense, I say, well, how would he know how much property he "owns"? It's all pretty much the dealings of his uber rich Barbie Robot wife and her uber uber rich daddy anyway. You know, the same people who funded McBush's very first ventures into public service back in 1982 and bought into a shopping center venture with a Mr. Keating.

Cindy McCain, discussing her recent purchase of a *second* $2M beach condo in CA:

"When I bought the first one, my husband, who is not a beach person, said, 'Oh, this is such a waste of money; the kids will never go.'

When most people think of a waste of money, it's that pair of shoes that sits unused in the closet, or the waffle iron. And they come to regret that lost $100.

Not John McCain. He thinks nothing of dropping $2M on a condo he thinks is going to be a wasted.

Real man of the people, that John McCain.

At what point does this guy so overuse his experience as a POW that it becomes irreversibly cheapened as a political cudgel?

Yesterday? Last week? During the 2000 campaign?

I tend to think there are good responses to folks attacking McCain's wealth--humbly attributing it to his wife, for one. Which would also be accurate. Finding a humorous or self-deprecating way to say Cindy controls the purse strings. That might be worth a try. "Hey, I can't remember how many houses I have because I was a POW" sounds very much like Kerry's frequent "I served in Vietnam" defense/anecdote for every situation. It gets old.

Or he could say, "Well, yes, we have so many houses I lost count, but I've always wanted a nice White House. And I haven't lived in one of those yet."

When the Daily Show makes it into a running gag, or SNL integrates it into a skit.

I think we are already in self-parody territory. "He lived in one house for five years - a prison." It reminds me of an old "Coffee Talk" on SNL where Roseanne, playing a Florida grandmother, keeps saying, "That's what Adolf Hitler said to my grandparents - before he put them in a concentration camp!"

At some point don't McCain's reminders that he was a brutally treated POW become an insult to all the others who also suffered in that way? Has that point passed yet?

The only hope mccain and the gop had was to tell people to not pay attention by making it about obama. We can see now why that is the case. The minute it becomes about McCain- he loses in a landslide. So long as its all negative on Obama, all the time. He has a shot. This is why Obama needs to remain negative on McCain. So long as McCain is on the defensive, like today, he loses- BIG.

"Barbie Robot wife"? Sounds pretty frightening, but still better than a big bad Angry Black Woman with a size 13 slingback jammed so far up her dopey hubby’s beehind he's got shoe polish on his breath. I’m really worried she'll do the same to whitey. Well, maybe I’m just a bit excited about the prospect….