Prediction: The next big McCain exploding-cigar-of-elitism flap: We now know the Jes’-Plain-Folks McCain’s spent $273,000 last year alone on household employees — what used to be called, in a less euphemistic age, ‘servants’ – but what isn’t mentioned is the hot-n-heavy rumor that they hired some, uh oh, undocumented workers amongst the various butlers, maids and nannies and, double uh oh, didn’t pay SS or taxes on the illegal imports. (Those without their papers have likely been canned and shipped back by now.) Gee, Senator, what’s your position on immigration again?
Quotable Corner:
“That’s right. The McCains pay $270,000 per year for butlers and maids–that’s $50,000 more than the median value of an American home.”
– Nitpicker, Aug. 21, 2008.“If you had made last year as much money as John McCain spent on household help alone $273,000 — you’d be richer than 95% of American families.”
– Mark Kleiman“When John Edwards was running for president, and the media were obsessing about his wealth, they linked his fortune to his policy positions. Surely John McCain — who can’t remember how many houses he owns, ‘jokes’ that you aren’t rich unless you make $5 million a year, and supports tax policies that would save him and his wife, Cindy, nearly $400,000 a year — should be held to the same standard?”
– Jamison Foser, Media Matters, Aug. 22, 2008.
And don’t forget to read the ‘Priceless’ McCain ad by davefromqueens on The Daily Kos.
The Tattlesnake – Special Who Said It? Quiz Edition
No cheating with ‘the Google,’ now. Answers below the fold.
1. “My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who … God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian … I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. … Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.”
A. Sarah Palin at her Juneau Church last June.
B. James Dobson at the Focus on the Family Summit last week.
C. Rev. Sun Myung Moon in 1979.
D. Adolf Hitler in 1922.
2. “I am prepared and need no on-the-job training. I wasn’t a mayor for a short period of time. I wasn’t a governor for a short period of time.”
A. Joe Biden in a Democratic primary debate in December 2007.
B. John Kerry to Newsweek, 2003.
C. Newt Gingrich on Fox News, April 2006.
D. John McCain in a GOP primary debate, October 2007.
3. “If the real thing don’t do the trick, you better make up something quick.”
A. Karl Rove to political science students at Liberty University in 2006.
B. Richard Nixon to John Ehrlichman in the Oval Office, May 2004.
C. From the lyrics to Huey Long’s 1930 campaign song “A Chicken in Every Pot.”
D. From the lyrics to Heart’s song “Barracuda,” played to close out the 2008 Republican Convention.
4. “No, I’m not going to define it.” [After being asked to define 'honor.']
A. Richard Nixon in a press conference, October 1973.
B. Barack Obama on NBC’s The Today Show, October 2007.
C. John McCain in an interview with Time Magazine, August 2008.
D. Rudy Giuliani in an interview with The New Yorker in 2005.
5. “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government. … And I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”
A. Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a sermon, June 2006.
B. Joe Vogler, founder of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party.
C. Barack Obama’s father in 1962.
D. Saddam Hussein in June 2003.
(more…)