As ThinkProgress just reported, CNN earlier today showed a deceptive chart which wrongly suggests that John McCain's tax plan provides more Americans with greater savings than that offered by Barack Obama. But CNN's upper-crust income brackets starting at $161,000 conceal the inescapable truth that Barack Obama's proposals offer working and middle class Americans steeper tax benefits at every income level up to $110,000. And according to a new Gallup poll released today, that truth isn't lost on American voters.

By 48% to 43%, Americans surveyed by Gallup say Obama would better handle the issue of taxes than John McCain. And with good reason. As the Washington Post detailed, an analysis by the Tax Policy Center showed:

"Obama's plan gives the biggest cuts to those who make the least, while McCain would give the largest cuts to the very wealthy."

Those whose income is under $67,000 - 60% of all American taxpayers - would see substantially larger tax cuts under the Obama plan. While McCain's plan concentrates 58% of its benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans, Obama's rollback of the Bush tax cuts above $250,000 produces tax increases for that group.

Sadly, Obama's story is not getting through. In the face of the TPC's analysis showing that 95% of American taxpayers would see savings under the Obama tax plan, 53% of the Gallup respondents wrongly believe their tax burden would increase under President Obama. Meanwhile, despite the same analysis showing McCain's plan to make permanent and expand the Bush tax cuts would produce a staggering $2.8 trillion in red ink for the federal budget, the Republican still claims the mantle of fiscal discipline.

And to be sure, CNN did American voters no favors today.

Monday was a miserable day for the Dow, with the market suffering a 242 point drop. But rather than joining "so-called market analysts" in attributing the sell-off to credit market woes, higher oil prices and a fluctuating dollar, the National Review's resident class warrior Larry Kudlow found a predictable villain. Despite the inescapable history that the stock market does better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones, Kudlow blamed the market steep slide on the opening of the Democratic Convention in Denver.

Unsurprisingly, the reliably Republican Kudlow faithfully regurgitated every GOP talking point in laying the Wall Street's woes at the door of the DNC:

"Are the Denver Dems downing the stock market today? The Dow is off 230 points, starting right from the get-go. So-called market analysts are blaming financials and the credit crunch as they always do. But there’s more.

Obama and Biden gave us plenty of class warfare in their Springfield, Ill., get together on Saturday. Tax the rich. Redistribute income and wealth. Go after all those corporate meanies. Trade protection...

...With the Denver Dems strutting their stuff, this could be a bumpy week for stocks. Did anyone say free-market capitalism is the best path to prosperity?"

Of course, as the record shows, the best path to prosperity is to elect Democratic presidents.

The superior performance of Democratic presidents covers virtually the entire spectrum of economic indicators. As Elliott Parker of the University of Nevada, Reno detailed in a 2006 paper, since 1949 Democratic administrations have done better than Republican ones when it comes to unemployment (5.2% to 6.0%), job creation (-.0.4% decrease in unemployment, compared to 0.3% increase), GDP growth rate (4.2% to 2.9%), and even corporate profits as a share of GDP. And to be sure, he found the Dow benefits from Democrats in the White House.

There's no shortage of studies to show that stock market returns are higher under Democratic leadership. (As it turns out, Wall Street's performance is also better when Democrats control Congress.) In 2000, Pedro Santa-Clara and Rossen Valkanov of UCLA's Anderson School of Business concluded that "that the average excess return in the stock market is higher under Democratic than Republican presidents - a difference of 9 percent per year for the value-weighted portfolio and 16 percent for the equal-weighted portfolio." As the New York Times noted of UCLA study in 2003:

"It's not even close. The stock market does far better under Democrats...

...Professors Santa-Clara and Valkanov look at the excess market return - the difference between a broad index of stock prices (basically the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index) and the three-month Treasury bill rate - between 1927 and 1998. The excess return measures how attractive stock investments are compared with completely safe investments like short-term T-bills.

Using this measure, they find that during those 72 years the stock market returned about 11 percent more a year under Democratic presidents and 2 percent more under Republicans - a striking difference."

In 2002, Slate similarly concluded that "Democrats, it turns out, are much better for the stock market than Republicans":

Slate ran the numbers and found that since 1900, Democratic presidents have produced a 12.3 percent annual total return on the S&P 500, but Republicans only an 8 percent return. In 2000, the Stock Trader's Almanac, which slices and dices Wall Street performance figures like baseball stats, came up with nearly the same numbers (13.4 percent versus 8.1 percent) by measuring Dow price appreciation. (Most of the 20th century's bear markets, incidentally, have been Republican bear markets: the Crash of '29, the early '70s oil shock, the '87 correction, and the current stall occurred under GOP presidents.)

According to almanac editor Jeffrey Hirsch, the presidential party figures are among the most significant he's found. If the stock market were random, we'd expect such a result only one-quarter of the time. "I don't know why people are convinced Republicans are good for the stock market," Hirsch says.

Why? Because Republican water carriers like Larry Kudlow continue - with great success - to perpetuate the myth that the regulation-free policies of the GOP that so benefit them personally somehow help the American people overall.

Back in April, CNBC's Kudlow compared the economic downturn to an enema, declaring, "Recessions are therapeutic." Needless to say, Kudlow's "let them eat cake" pronouncement is not true. Then again, neither is his myth that Republicans are better than Democrats for the stock market.

Sometimes, a single gaffe - real or imagined - comes to symbolize an entire presidential campaign. With Americans struggling as unemployment topped 7% in 1992, President George H.W. Bush saw his reelection prospects dimmed by his reported amazement at a simple grocery store checkout scanner. But while Bush 41's defining out-of-touch moment may be the stuff of political mythology, John McCain's stunning ignorance about how many homes he owns may soon come to define his run for the White House.

To be sure, the $100 million man did not endear himself this week to Americans under siege from high gas prices, skyrocketing home foreclosures and rising unemployment. Having defined Saturday the line between middle class and rich at $5 million, John McCain then declared Wednesday "I define rich in other ways besides income." But in the course of that same interview with the Politico, McCain made what could be a momentum-stopping misstep:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think - I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you."

The impact of idle rich presidential candidates appearing oblivious to the hardships of working Americans can't be understated. On February 5th, 1992, the New York Times reported on George H.W. Bush's scanner snafu in a piece titled, "Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed." Attending the National Grocer's Association convention in Orlando, Bush was impressed:

"If some guy came in and spelled George Bush differently, could you catch it?" the President asked. "Yes," he was told, and he shook his head in wonder.

Then he grabbed a quart of milk, a light bulb and a bag of candy and ran them over an electronic scanner. The look of wonder flickered across his face again as he saw the item and price registered on the cash register screen.

"This is for checking out?" asked Mr. Bush. "I just took a tour through the exhibits here," he told the grocers later. "Amazed by some of the technology."

For days, the White House protested that President Bush has seen such scanners "many times" and, as the Times reported on February 13th, 1992, "that he was impressed by a new generation of high-technology devices and not the type most people see every time they go to the supermarket." But the damage was already done. Reviewing the videotape, the Times concluded "Mr. Bush seemed unfamiliar with even basic scanner technology." And the image of the aloof, gin-and-tonic sipping, anyone-for-tennis Bush 41 came to define his failed reelection effort.

Two weeks ago, blogger Brendan Nyhan criticized the Los Angeles Time and the New York Times for perpetuating a myth about Bush the Elder and the dreaded scanner. "The Times," he argued, "had not been at the event in question but instead based its story on a pool report, which indicated that Bush was impressed by new scanner technology that could weigh groceries and read damaged bar codes." So when the New York Times on August 3, 2008 mocked the computer illiterate John McCain as "the analog candidate," Nyhan insists its comparison below to Poppy was unfair:

"Mr. McCain's sense of wonder evoked the episode in the early 1990s when George H. W. Bush became overly impressed upon seeing a price scanner at a supermarket check-out counter. It suggested to some people that the president, who had spent four years in the White House after spending eight years as vice president, was out of touch with the lives of average Americans."

But whatever happened in 1992, there can be no question about John McCain's shocking disconnect from the lives of real Americans. While he can't keep track of the 7, 8 or even 10 homes he owns, millions of Americans are struggling to hold onto the one they know they have - for now.

UPDATE: Marc Ambinder asks the question, "McCain Is To Houses What GWBH Was To Grocery Store Scanners?"

John McCain has finally and definitively answered the question, how do you define "rich?" After first joking that "$5 million" marked the line between middle class and rich and then arguing, "I define rich in other ways besides income," John McCain provided the real answer Thursday. A rich man doesn't even know how many houses he owns.

That moment of clarity for American voters - if not for McCain himself - came in an interview with the Politico:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

"I think - I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you."

As Matthew Yglesias points out, with McCain in some cases owning many homes on a single massive estate, it's hard to keep count. Virginia Governor Tim Kaine came to McCain's defense, noting the $100 million man "couldn't count high enough." For its part, the Obama campaign was only too happy to help out, producing a devastating ad today that tells John McCain the answer is "seven."

Back in March, John McCain lectured desperate Americans facing foreclosure that they ought to be "doing what is necessary -- working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets -- to make their payments on time."

That's easy to say when you don't know how many homes you have.

For the gold-plated details of the detached lives of John and Cindy McCain, see:
"The Haves, The Have Mores and the McCains."

UPDATE: The Politico now claims McCain has 8 homes, while Progressive Accountability counts 10.

Now, there is nothing wrong with being happily rich and utterly detached. Nothing, that is, unless you make criticizing your political opponent as "elitist" and "out of touch" a centerpiece of your campaign. Rick Davis, speaking on behalf of his $100 million man John McCain, earlier this month offered the latest formulation of Barack Obama as an effete, aloof denizen of the upper class:

"Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand 'MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew - Black Forest Berry Honest Tea' and worry about the price of arugula."

Of course, Davis' "arugula war" is just another attempt at misdirection. After all, John McCain's $5 million threshold where "you move from middle class to rich" is just the latest episode of his enduring disconnect from the real lives of the American people.

For starters, McCain in April declared that there had been "great progress economically" during the Bush years. On more than one occasion, he diagnosed Americans' concerns over the dismal U.S. economy as "psychological." (Phil Gramm, McCain's close friend and adviser supposedly excommunicated over his "whiners" remarks, was back with the campaign last week.) McCain, a man who owns eight homes nationwide, in March lectured Americans facing foreclosure that they ought to be "doing what is necessary -- working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets -- to make their payments on time." And when all else fails, McCain told the people of the economically devastated regions in Martin County, Kentucky and Youngstown, Ohio, there's always eBay.

In his defense, McCain's shocking tone-deafness may just be a matter of perspective. When you're as well off as he is, anything below a $5 million income (a figure exceeding that earned on average by the top 0.1% of Americans) seems middle class.

The Joys of (Eight) Home Ownership. While fellow adulterer John Edwards was pilloried for his mansion, John McCain's eight homes around the country have received little notice or criticism. His properties include a 10 acre lake-side Sedona estate, euphemistically called a "cabin" by the McCain campaign, and a home featured in Architectural Digest. The one featuring "remote control window coverings" was recently put up for sale. Still, their formidable resources did not prevent the McCains from failing to pay taxes on a tony La Jolla, California condo used by Cindy's aged aunt.

The Anheuser-Busch Windfall. As it turns out, the beauty of globalization is in the eye of the beholder. While John McCain apparently played a critical role in facilitating DHL's takeover of Airborne (and with it, the looming loss of 8,000 jobs in Wilmington, Ohio), Cindy McCain is set to earn a staggering multi-million dollar pay-day from the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by the Belgian beverage giant, In Bev. As the Wall Street Journal reported in July, Mrs. McCain runs the third largest Anheuser-Busch distributorship in the nation, and owns between $2.5 and $5 million in the company's stock. Amazingly, while Missouri's politicians of both parties lined up to try to block the sale, John McCain held a fundraiser in the Show Me State even as the In Bev deal was being finalized.

McCain's $370,000 Personal Tax Break. Earlier this year, the Center for American Progress analyzed John McCain's tax proposals. The conclusion? McCain's plan is radically more regressive than even that of President Bush, delivering 58% of its benefits to the wealthiest 1% of American taxpayers. McCain's born-again support for the Bush tax cuts has one additional bonus for Mr. Straight Talk: the McCains would save an estimated $373,000 a year.

Paying Off $225,000 Credit Card Debt - Priceless. That massive windfall from his own tax plan will come in handy for John McCain. As was reported in June, the McCains were carrying over $225,000 in credit card debt. The American Express card - don't leave your homes without it.

Charity Begins at Home. As Harpers documented earlier this year, the McCains are true believers in the old saying that charity begins at home:

Between 2001 and 2006, McCain contributed roughly $950,000 to [their] foundation. That accounted for all of its listed income other than for $100 that came from an anonymous donor. During that same period, the McCain foundation made contributions of roughly $1.6 million. More than $500,000 went to his kids' private schools, most of which was donated when his children were attending those institutions. So McCain apparently received major tax deductions for supporting elite schools attended by his children.

Ironically, the McCain campaign last week blasted Barack Obama for having attended a private school in Hawaii on scholarship. That attack came just weeks after John McCain held an event at his old prep school, Episcopal High, an institution where fees now top $38,000 a year.

Private Jet Setters. As the New York Times detailed back in April, John McCain enjoyed the use of his wife's private jet for his campaign, courtesy of election law loopholes he helped craft. Despite the controversy, McCain continued to use Cindy's corporate jet. For her part, Cindy McCain says that even with skyrocketing fuel costs, "in Arizona the only way to get around the state is by small private plane."

Help on the Homefront. In these tough economic times, the McCains are able to stretch their household budget. As the AP reported in April, "McCain reported paying $136,572 in wages to household employees in 2007. Aides say the McCains pay for a caretaker for a cabin in Sedona, Ariz., child care for their teenage daughter, and a personal assistant for Cindy McCain."

Well-Heeled in $520 Shoes. If clothes make the man, then John McCain has it made. As Huffington Post noted in July, "He has worn a pair of $520 black leather Ferragamo shoes on every recent campaign stop - from a news conference with the Dalai Lama to a supermarket visit in Bethlehem, PA." It is altogether fitting that McCain wore the golden loafers during a golf outing with President George H.W. Bush in which he rode around in cart displaying the sign, "Property of Bush #41. Hands Off."

And so it goes. John McCain proclaims $5 million finally makes you rich. Meanwhile, ABC's Charlie Gibson thinks a $200,000 income makes you middle class. And his colleague Cokie Roberts claims Barack Obama's vacation to his home state of Hawaii was "exotic."

(For video details of John McCain lifestyle of the rich and famous, visit here and here.)

UPDATE: In an interview with the Politico Wednesday, John McCain refused to name a dollar figure marking the line between middle class and rich. "I define rich in other ways besides income," he said. More amazing, McCain was unsure how many homes he and wife Cindy actually own:

"I think - I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. "It's condominiums where - I'll have them get to you."

As he faced reelection in 2004, George W. Bush famously committed to cut the deficit in half in five years. But that promise, as the Washington Post, CNN and others noted at the time, was premised upon two parallel frauds.

First, Bush's pompous prediction used as its baseline a wildly inflated White House deficit forecast of $521 billion, well above the CBO's estimate and the actual FY 04 figure of $413 billion. More importantly, President Bush conveniently chose 2009 as his finish line, the year before his tax cuts were set to expire. Making them permanent (which John McCain now endorses) would blow another $2.2 trillion hole in the federal budget by 2014. In addition, other required costs (such as the Medicare prescription drug plan) and likely federal tax code adjustments (most notably fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax) would add hundreds of billions more in red ink to the national ledger. And all of that is before the deluge of Social Security and Medicare expenditures looming with the retirement of the baby boom generation.

Nonetheless, when the budget deficit dipped last year to $163 billion, the Bush administration proclaimed victory and vindication. On its web page titled, "Fiscal Discipline: Managing for Results," the White House crowed:

"The deficit has been cut in half three years ahead of the President's 2009 goal. Historic revenue growth and a continued commitment to spending restraint contributed to this reduction."

As it turns, not so much.

The new numbers from the OMB are grim, reflecting a slowing economy, a dismal housing market and declining corporate income tax collections, all of which have combined to produce a drop in federal revenues from 2007 to 2008. While the White House ratcheted down its estimates for economic growth (1.6% for this year, down from 2.7% in its February forecast and 2.2% for 2009, down from 3.0%), federal spending is slated to jump by 8% this year and 6.5% in 2009 (including the cost of the economic stimulus package). Worse still, as the Washington Post noted, "next year's record figure includes only $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could cost three times that much."

The changing fortunes of Bush's bogus budget boast five years ago are on display on the White House web site. In February 2004, the White House claimed President Bush was committed to "staying on course to cut the deficit in half within 5 years" for FY 2005. The 2006 overview promised to exercise "responsible spending restraint in order to achieve the President’s goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009." As mentioned above, in 2007 the White House prematurely proclaimed mission accomplished in halving the budget deficit, adding that the President's budget will "produce a balanced budget by 2012." Unfortunately, 12 months later the White House web site announced that "the President's FY2008 Budget reduces the deficit each year and reaches a balanced budget within five years." Amazingly, Bush's FY 2009 budget overview stands by his comically irrelevant pledge to "ensure that near-term deficits are overcome and we achieve a surplus in 2012."

In historical terms, at 3.3% of GDP the Bush deficit pales in comparison to Ronald Reagan's record 1983 red ink hemorrhage of 6%. Still, Bush's stage-managed mission to halve the budget deficit was not accomplished.

And that, in so many ways, is the legacy of George W. Bush.

On Thursday, Americans saw the minimum wage jump to $6.55 an hour. Boosted by the second of three 70 cent increases passed by the new Democratic majority in Congress after the 2006 mid-term elections, the minimum wage will move to $7.25 next year. But to be sure, the two million Americans who got a raise today won't have John McCain to thank for it.

McCain's record on the minimum wage isn't a pretty one. In March 2005, McCain opposed Ted Kennedy's bill, instead siding with Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum on a limited measure which would have topped out at $6.25. In November of that year, McCain told NBC's Tim Russert that he would not back changes at either the federal level or his home state of Arizona without protections for small business owners. As the AFL-CIO web site details, the multimillionaire McCain scoffed at the tactics used by minimum wage advocates:

When the Senate was debating a minimum wage increase in 2006 and the Senate's many pay raises over the past decade were brought up, McCain called the comparison "a very clever ploy." He defended his opposition to the minimum wage increase, saying he had foregone Senate pay raises, "...sometimes to the dismay of my family."

But after the Democratic wave captured the House and Senate, McCain joined Republican obstructionists in early 2007 hoping to block the wage boost initiative then favored by 86% of Americans. On January 24, 2007, McCain joined GOP Senators in a filibuster to halt Kennedy's bill. Instead, McCain along with 27 of his Republican colleagues backed an amendment by Wayne Allard (R-KS) which would have effectively gutted the federal minimum wage law. In 56 words, Allard's proviso would have shifted the wage standard to the states:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, an employer shall not be required to pay an employee a wage that is greater than the minimum wage provided for by the law of the State in which the employee is employed and not less than the minimum wage in effect in that State on January 1, 2007."

(Ironically, that would have punished workers in precisely those states that voted for George W. Bush for President.)

Ultimately, John McCain caved to public pressure and voted for the compromise package that included $5 billion in business tax breaks demanded by Congressional Republicans.

As it turns out, John McCain's opposition to fair pay for American workers doesn't end with the minimum wage. McCain has opposed protections for workers' overtime rights and repeatedly sought exceptions to the Davis-Bacon Act rules on prevailing wages. When President Bush and some of his Republican allies in Congress sought to wave prevailing wage requirements in the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, John McCain supported the move to allow federal contractors in the disaster area to pay wages below market rates.

In 1989, McCain's economic brain Phil Gramm declared, "The plain truth is there should be no minimum wage law in this great land of free enterprise." (Apparently, the minimum wage is for whiners.) No doubt, as some Americans pocket their 70 cent raise today, it's no thanks to John McCain.

In 2007, Americans learned that they had relinquished their 200-year hold on the title of world's tallest people. Now a devastating new report shows that across a growing range of indicators of health, wealth and education, Americans simply aren't measuring up.

The "Measure of America" study by the American Human Development Project (funded by Oxfam America, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation) documents a laggard United States trailing other leading advanced economies. Reflecting growing income inequality and the exploding population of Americans without health insurance, the U.S. has dropped from its lofty second place ranking in 1990 to #12 on the study's index of human development now.

The grim numbers portray an American people living lives that are less healthy and less secure than those in countries where per capita income - and health care expenditures - are dramatically lower than in the U.S. Among the grim harvest of numbers from the report:

• The U.S. ranks 24th in life expectancy out of the 30 most affluent nations and 42nd globally despite spending $5.2 billion a day for health care. The racial disparities are even more glaring, with African-American living 4.6 years less than the national average of 77.9.
• America is only 34th in infant mortality, putting it on a par with is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland.
• 40 million Americans (14%) lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.
• Income inequality in the U.S. also surpasses virtually every other industrialized nation. The richest fifth of Americans earn on average $168,170 a year, almost 15 times the average of the lowest fifth, who must get by on $11,352.
• The US has a higher percentage of children (15% or 10.7 million kids) living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.
• Sadly, the United States ranks first among the 30 OECD member states in terms of its prison population, measured both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of its population. A nation with 5% of the world's population has 24% of its prisoners.

Of course, residents of the United States are not returning to a Hobbesian state of nature where life is nasty, brutish and short. No doubt, the American standard of living remains high and the envy of much (if not as much) of the world.

But the Measure of America analysis reveals a nation where life is harsher than many people - and probably most in the United States - would have expected. As the authors suggest, the disintegrating health care system with its 47 million uninsured, the skyrocketing indebtedness of Americans, the spiraling cost of education, nonexistent childcare and a vanishing safety net are putting "the American Dream in peril."

In an interview Wednesday with the Washington Times, the UBS vice chairman followed McCain's lead in decrying Americans' imaginary financial woes:

"You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet."

"We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said.

Of course, while the flat-lining U.S. GDP numbers suggest the nation is not yet technically in a recession, the 400,000 jobs shed over the past six months and the record home foreclosure rate are not figments of Americans' imaginations.

That Gramm, a purveyor of a financial instrument affectionately known as "death bonds" and seen in many quarters as an architect of the mortgage market meltdown, would be so cavalier is unsurprising. John McCain, on the other hand, despite his 8 homes and wife's $100 million fortune is running for president and has to manufacture at least the facade of compassion.

And yet McCain, too, similarly has claimed the downturn is mental.

But back in April, Sigmund McCain told Fox News host Neil Cavuto that his gas tax holiday placebo was just what the doctor ordered for Americans' fragile psyches, if not their pocketbooks:

"I'm very concerned about it, Neil. And obviously the way it's been going up is just terrible. But I think psychologically - and a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological - the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. This might give them a little psychological boost. Let's have some straight talk, it's not a huge amount of money."

At a town hall meeting in Fresno two weeks ago, McCain touted his born-again support for off-shore drilling as Prozac for the economy. Acknowledging the inescapable conclusion that expanded oil exploration off Florida and California would have no impact on gas prices for years, McCain insisted it was nonetheless the right tonic for Americans' economic woes:

"I don't see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist -- and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts -- is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

By now, McCain should have learned his lesson about telling Americans that their financial troubles are just in their minds. Back in April, McCain recanted his April 17 claim that the Bush years had produced "great progress economically." By the next day, he grudgingly admitted "Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago." And while McCain stumbled again Tuesday by telling MSNBC's Joe Scarborough "I imagine we are" in a recession, by later in the day he got his story straight for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

Trib: Are we in a recession now in your opinion?

McCain: Of course, I believe that we're in a recession, but the important thing, you know, people sit around the kitchen table at night saying how are we going to make the mortgage payment? They're not saying, hey, you think we're in a recession? Or just, this is an economic dip, you know, what do you think we're - they're saying how are we going to make our payment this month? How are we going to stay in our home? So and so just lost his job. So that really is -- and I don't mean to be disrespectful of your question, I apologize if I was. But I think, yeah, I'd say we're, certainly in the minds of millions and millions of Americans, we are in a quote recession.

Gramm and McCain's distaste for using the word "recession" is understandable, given the Republican Party's prospects in this election year. (And to be sure, the only "R-word" more painful for the GOP to utter right now is "Republican.") So, better to deny the reality of voters' economic hardship and brush it off as all mental.

Yogi Berra, too, once famously said, "Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical." But as beloved as he is by the American people, that doesn't mean they want him in the White House.

UPDATE: In a statement this morning, Phil Gramm stood by his "mental recession" remarks. Now blaming America's political leaders and not its citizens for "whining," Gramm insisted, "I'm not going to retract any of it. Every word I said was true." He might want to check in with yesterday's version of John McCain.

If John McCain has many more days like Tuesday, his only chance to get to the White House will be as a tourist. On the same day he dropped jaws with his joke about killing Iranians with cigarettes, McCain amazingly slammed Social Security as "an absolute disgrace." Then even as McCain's first-term balanced budget pledge was being pilloried in the press, Americans learned that 300 economists signed a statement supporting McCain which made no mention of it. And topping it all off, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's insistence on a timeline for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq put John McCain squarely on the defensive on his signature issue.

Coming on the heels of his April 2007 jest about "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran," McCain's jest about killing Iranians with cigarettes of mass destruction served to once again raise eyebrows - and questions about his presidential temperament.

But that was hardly his most damaging gaffe of the day. While walking the fine line between extolling private retirement accounts without explicitly calling for the privatization of Social Security, John McCain stumbled directly onto the third rail of American politics. As Mother Jones reported Tuesday, John McCain during a Denver town hall meeting the day before attacked Social Security, the program responsible for dramatically reducing poverty among the elderly, for working exactly as designed:

"Americans have got to understand that we are paying present-day retirees with the taxes paid by young workers in America today. And that's a disgrace. It's an absolute disgrace, and it's got to be fixed."

Appearing on CNN Tuesday morning, McCain only compounded his error. Sounding like a rabid laissez-faire ideologue, an ignorant hack or more likely both, McCain told John Roberts:

"They pay their taxes and right now their taxes are going to pay the retirement of present-day retirees. That's why it's broken, that's why we can fix it."

As an amazed Jared Bernstein of the Economics Policy Institute put it, "It's like he's saying, 'I just found out that taxes come from people...that's a disgrace.'" MoJo's Nick Baumann summed it up nicely, "McCain is saying, again, that the problem with Social Security is that Social Security is Social Security." And given McCain's past support for Social Security privatization and his promise Monday to magically reign in entitlement spending in his comical effort to balance the budget by 2013, McCain no doubt just scared the bejesus out of America's senior citizens.

But McCain's woes on Tuesday hardly ended with his Social Security calamity. Just one day after his campaign proudly proclaimed 300 economists had endorsed his economic plan, the Politico revealed McCain's gambit to be a smoke-screen. The economists' statement, as it turned out, excluded the centerpieces of his "Jobs for America" document released Monday - a gas tax holiday and balancing the budget by the end of a first McCain term - precisely because so few believe in them:

Upon closer inspection, it seems a good many of those economists don't actually support the whole of McCain's economic agenda. And at least one doesn't even support McCain for president.

In interviews with more than a dozen of the signatories, Politico found that, far from embracing McCain's economic plan, many were unfamiliar with - or downright opposed to - key details...

...The statement they signed is 403 words long - and there is no mention of the gas tax holiday or the deficit, which the Congressional Budget Office projects will approach $400 billion this year.

As for that balanced budget pledge, it's no wonder, as the Politico's Mike Allen reported, that McCain wants "no videotape of it to show later."

Still, McCain's disasters on the home front pale in comparison to the Iraq trap which ensnared him yesterday. Seeking to gain leverage in the talks over a new status of forces agreement with the United States, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mouwafak al-Rubaie echoed Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's insistence that a timetable for withdrawal of American troops is a requirement:

"Our stance in the negotiations underway with the American side will be strong...We will not accept any memorandum of understanding that doesn't have specific dates to withdraw foreign forces from Iraq."

Sadly for John McCain and his vision of 100 year U.S. military presence in Iraq, McCain in 2004 acknowledged that American forces would have to go if a sovereign government in Baghdad demanded it:

"Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because - if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."

After lambasting Mitt Romney and Barack Obama alike over withdrawal timelines, John McCain is now scrambling to address statements like those from Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh that the timeframe for a U.S. pull-out "can be 2011 or 2012." Exacerbating matters for McCain, the timeline quandary comes just days after Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen insisted that he can't shift badly needed troops to Afghanistan "until I have a reduced requirement in Iraq." To the consternation of the McCain campaign, the messages from Baghdad and the Pentagon sound like they were written by Barack Obama.

To be sure, Tuesday was a terrible day for John McCain. And judging by his new restrictions on campaign press, it sounds like Mr. Straight Talk just wants it all to go away.

UPDATE: As reader James notes in the Comments, McCain's Tuesday was even more self-destructive than I first reported. In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, McCain took credit for orchestrating the release of American hostages from FARC rebels during his stop-over in Colombia:

Trib: What was the purpose of your recent trip to Colombia and did you accomplish what you hoped to accomplish?

McCain: Well, I'm happy to tell you that I orchestrated the rescue of those hostages.

As it turned out, McCain was joking. But in a statement almost as comic, McCain claimed that Iraqi government figures were in fact not calling for a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal from their country:

Trib: Senator, with Iraqi leaders now calling for a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals ...

McCain: Actually the Iraqis are not. The Iraqis widely reported as short a time ago as a couple of weeks ago that there would be no status of forces agreement, and Maliki would say that, and it got headlines, and of course it turned out not to be true.

On Monday, John McCain repackaged his previous economic proposals in a mystifying document simply called "Jobs for America." More notable for what it lacked than what it included, McCain's latest rehash unsurprisingly left out his past admissions of ignorance on matters economic, his vision of eBay as Americans' economic future or his belief that the U.S. recession was merely "psychological." But in returning to a previously abandoned promise to magically balance the budget by the end of his first term, John McCain is depending on a 21st century "peace dividend" and unspecified reforms of entitlement programs. Call it McCain's Immaculate Deception.

The Immaculate Deception starts and ends with McCain's on-again, off-again, on-again pledge to balance the federal budget by 2013. As I noted a month ago, McCain made the first term balanced budget promise during a Wisconsin campaign rally in February. But by mid-April, his campaign was backing off. McCain's chief economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin set a new target of 2017 to stem the red ink, feebly proclaiming on April 14th, "I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction." McCain, too, backed off his previous promise, telling ABC's George Stephanopolous that 2013 "would be the goal," not a commitment. He was reneging on his short-lived promise, McCain told MSNBC's Chris Matthews on April 15, because "economic conditions are reversed."

Apparently, economic conditions have reversed themselves again. A month after Holtz-Eakin exhumed the 2013 balance budget pledge ("That plan, when appropriately phased in, as it has always been intended to be, will bring the budget to balance by the end of his first term"), McCain formalized it in his plan today:

"John McCain will balance the budget by the end of his first term."

But to accomplish his budgetary sleight of hand, McCain relies not on his three stated principles ("reasonable economic growth", "comprehensive spending controls", and "bi-partisanship in budget efforts"), but a three-part shell game.

First is McCain's resurrection of the ephemeral 1990's "peace dividend." Despite his plans for a 100 year American military presence in Iraq and previous calls for a boost in defense spending, the miraculous conclusion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will produce a budgetary windfall for the U.S. Treasury:

"The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction."

Like napalm in the morning, to McCain a balanced budget smells like victory.

The second leg of McCain's fantastical budget balancing stool is entitlement reform. It begins with the Social Security privatization that dare not speak its name. Despite McCain's past statements, along with those of advisers such as Carly Fiorina, that he supports privatization, McCain insisted as recently as June 12th that "I never have been" in favor of the shift to private accounts. And yet, the hint of privatization was there again today:

John McCain will fight to save the future of Social Security, and he believes that we may meet our obligations to the retirees of today and the future without raising taxes. John McCain supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts - but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle to address these challenges, but if the Democrats do not act, he will. No problem is in more need of honesty than the looming financial challenges of entitlement programs. Americans have the right to know the truth and John McCain will not leave office without fixing the problems that threatens our future prosperity and power.

No doubt, addressing the long-term health of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will require "honesty," but it certainly won't be coming from the McCain campaign. Asked in a conference call today where the savings will come from the nation's entitlement programs, Holtz-Eakin answered cryptically that the supposed maverick can be trusted to work his magic. As the Politico noted:

McCain, noted his adviser, "has a long history of being able to reach across the aisle" to address policy issues.

He'll "solve big problems and provide leadership," Holtz-Eakin said, staying vague.

Don't get what he's talking about?

It's the issue that dare not speak its name during a campaign -- what to do about those entitlements that take up a much larger slice of the federal budget than any earmarks McCain wants to cut.

What Holtz-Eakin was suggesting, of course, is that McCain would work with Democratic leaders in Congress to address the increasingly heavy fiscal load that will come when baby boomers retire and start drawing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

The third leg of McCain's smoke and mirrors budgetary triad, of course, is his program of massive tax cuts. Along with the magical windfall from "victory" and the TBD entitlement reforms, the McCain tax cuts will drive rapid economic growth and erase this year's $400 billion deficit.

Sadly, as ThinkProgress detailed back in March, the McCain plan to make permanent and expand upon the Bush tax cuts would in fact blow a hole in the U.S. budget for the next decade. Today's promise that "the McCain Administration will reclaim billions of add-on spending from earmarks and add-ons in FY 2007 and 2008" would be a drop in the bucket compared to the fiscal disaster President McCain would create:

Our analysis suggests that the McCain plan shares five key characteristics of Bush policies. First, it is enormously expensive, costing more than $2 trillion over the next decade and essentially doubling the Bush tax cuts. Second, the McCain plan would predominantly benefit the most fortunate taxpayers, offering two new massive tax cuts for corporations and delivering 58 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The Bush tax cuts provide 31 percent of their benefits to the top 1 percent of taxpayers.

Third, the McCain tax plan continues the shift of the tax burden from investment income onto earned income. Fourth, the plan not only fails to address current tax shelter problems in the tax code but in fact will lead to increased sheltering. Fifth, McCain cannot pay for his tax cuts without massive reductions in Social Security, Medicare, or other key programs that benefit the vast majority of Americans.

Years ago, the cartoonist Gary Larson produced a Far Side comic strip showing two scientists pondering over a massive proof that spanned an entire blackboard. Sidney Harris prioduced a similarly themed comic. In the next to last step, the proof read, "Then a Miracle Occurs." That sums up the economic plan John McCain reintroduced today: miraculous though undiscussed savings from entitlement spending combined with billions of dollars no longer needed to fight the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq magically combine to offset the endless sea of red ink produced by the McCain tax cuts.

As he did with his jaw-dropping "2013" speech in May, McCain is again asking Americans to trust him that what he can imagine happening in his future perfect presidency will in fact come to pass.

An immaculate deception, indeed.

That's the message emerging for two stories this weekend. First comes word, as Newsweek reported, that the McCains are delinquent in paying property taxes on an oceanfront condo in tony La Jolla, California. (That seaside getaway is not to be confused with the one of the McCains' other seven homes now up for sale, a Phoenix condo featuring "remote control window coverings.")

San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response. County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain's trust, were returned by the post office. According to a McCain campaign aide, who requested anonymity when discussing a private matter, an elderly aunt of Mrs. McCain's lives in the condo, and the bank that manages the trust has not been receiving tax bills on the property. Shortly after NEWSWEEK inquired about the matter, the McCain aide e-mailed a receipt dated Friday, June 27, confirming payment by the trust to San Diego County in the amount of $6,744.42. County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: "The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due."

As Dan McAllister, treasurer- tax collector for San Diego put it, "We do hear an awful lot of excuses for why people don't pay." Apparently, the $100 million couple fell behind on their mail.

Given John McCain's stern morality when it comes to the American foreclosure crisis, the La Jolla debacle is particularly ironic. In March, after all, McCain initially rejected a role for the federal government in alleviating the wave of home foreclosures crippling the economy. "Any assistance must be temporary," McCain said on March 25th, "and must not reward people who were irresponsible at the expense of those who weren't." Before reversing course just two weeks later, McCain admonished Americans delinquent on their mortgage payments that they should join the ranks of those:

"Doing what is necessary -- working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets -- to make their payments on time."

As we also learned this weekend, John McCain's tone deafness regarding Americans' economic woes extends to skyrocketing gas prices. Just three weeks after insisting his critics' claim of a "Bush-McCain policy" is "false," McCain exhibited precisely the same detachment about fuel costs as the man he seeks to replace.

Earlier this year, President Bush was rightly lambasted for his stunning acknowledgement that he "hadn't heard" about predictions of gasoline prices hitting $4 a gallon. This week, John McCain followed suit, arguing that it "doesn't matter" that he doesn't know the price of gas. As Martin Wicksol of the Orange County Register documented:

WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don't remember. Now there's Secret Service protection. But I've done it for many, many years. I don't recall and frankly, I don't see how it matters.

I've had hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, many as short a time ago as yesterday. I communicate with the people and they communicate with me very effectively.

McCain could have made the point that, as he did in April and June, Americans' pain at the gas pump is merely "psychological."

In a final irony, it is worth recalling that it is the millionaire McCain who branded his opponent Barack Obama "elitist." What would McCain have Americans do about that statement? As with so many of the contradictions and ironies which leave his mouth, forget about it.

John McCain isn't a psychologist, but he's playing one on TV. Again. For the second time in two months, the supposed maverick turned modern day Freud has diagnosed Americans' economic ills and concluded that it's all in our heads. And to be sure, his recommended therapy - offshore oil drilling and a gas tax holiday - are the equivalent of "take two aspirin and call me in the morning."

At a town hall meeting in Fresno on Tuesday, McCain finally overcame his own cognitive dissonance on the issue of offshore oil drilling. Acknowledging the inescapable conclusion that expanded oil exploration off Florida and California would have no impact on gas prices for years, McCain insisted it was nonetheless the right tonic for Americans' economic woes:

"I don't see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist -- and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts -- is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

While Dr. McCain's about-face on offshore drilling is new, his conclusion that the deepening American economic crisis is merely psychological is not.

On Tuesday, McCain prescribed his summer gas tax holiday for America's depressed drivers, explaining "In the short term I'd like to give you a little relief for the summer on the gas tax." But back in April, Sigmund McCain told Fox News host Neil Cavuto that his placebo was just what the doctor ordered for Americans' fragile psyches, if not their pocketbooks:

"I'm very concerned about it, Neil. And obviously the way it's been going up is just terrible. But I think psychologically - and a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological - the confidence, trust, the uncertainty about our economic future, ability to keep our own home. This might give them a little psychological boost. Let's have some straight talk, it's not a huge amount of money."

Of course, John McCain is nothing if not ironic. On more than one occasion, McCain prescribed eBay as the cure for recession and poverty. This latest episode of McCain as economic know-nothing turned armchair psychologist came on literally the same day Karl Rove branded Democrat Barack Obama as the "coolly arrogant", "country club" snob. John and Cindy McCain, after all, are worth an estimated $100 million and own eight homes (though the one with "remote control window coverings" is now up for sale). And, as it turns out, the $373,000 the couple would save annually from John McCain's tax plan would more than offset their $225,000 in credit card debt.

Even more ironic, though, is John McCain trying to diagnose Americans' economic mental health given his own profound suffering from a variant of the "Sybil complex." Sybil was a woman who in the 70's exhibited 16 different personalities. As it turns out, John McCain is a man in his seventies who has displayed different personalities - and changed positions - on dozens of issues.

For the Washington Post's Richard Cohen, John McCain's spineless opportunism is just in our heads. Just like, according to Dr. McCain, the economic slowdown.

Two months after I first highlighted John McCain's prescription of eBay as the cure for what ails the economy, economists are finally weighing in. As Bloomberg reports, the feedback isn't pretty. While McCain, who has admitted knowing little about economics and even less about computers, may envision a nation of auctioneers, "new people selling stuff out of their closet on EBay isn't growing the economy."

That's the message from economist Betsey Stevenson, a professor at the Wharton School of Business.

"In terms of jobs, there's no net increase in GDP that comes from trading stuff that's already made. To trade things that are produced in other countries just to swap them,'' -- conveys a message, "that America can't produce anything and that's a very dismal view of the U.S. economy."

Lehman Brothers' Ethan Harris noted that while eBay no doubt transformed an "incredibly inefficient market for junk and turned it into a very efficient market for junk," at the end of the day:

"It's an example of good old-fashioned U.S. ingenuity, but selling used products is a limited business model."

That hasn't stopped John McCain and his senior adviser, rumored vice presidential possibility and former CEO Meg Whitman from making online auctions of Barbie dolls, Hummel figurines and car parts the centerpiece of their Disownership Society.

During his now-forgotten "Forgotten Places" tour two months ago, McCain told an audience in Inez, Kentucky, "You have a right to expect us to show as much concern for helping you create more and better choices to make for yourselves as we show any other community in America." And one of those better choices, according to John McCain, is to become a seller on the auction site, eBay:

"Today, for example, 1.3 million people in the world make a living off eBay, most of those are in the United State of America."

Ebay's Whitman couldn't have put it better herself. In fact, she put it almost exactly the same on way on CBS 60 Minutes in March. As she told Lesley Stahl:

"We have about - around the world, about 1.3 million people make most, if not all, of their living selling on eBay."

For its part, the McCain campaign appears unconcerned about key sectors of the American economy hemorrhaging jobs. Back in January, John McCain told an audience in Michigan that he didn't want to raise "false hopes that somehow we can bring back lost jobs," adding that it" wasn't government's job to protect buggy factories and haberdashers when cars replaced carriages and men stopped wearing hats." Douglas Holtz-Eakin, his chief economic adviser, echoed that line:

"We shouldn't be obsessed with looking backwards all the time, and saying, 'Gee, where did those jobs go?'''

Nonplussed by those job losses, John McCain thinks even less about the economists who savaged his vision of American eBay economy. On June 12, the computer and economics non-savant rejected their objections:

"You know the economists? They're the same ones that didn't predict this housing crisis we're in. They're the same ones that didn't predict the dot-com meltdown. They're the same ones that didn't predict the inflation that's staring us in the face today."

As Fortune suggested yesterday, his eBay potion isn't the only reason economists will shake their heads in disbelief when McCain speaks on the economy. Asked "what do you see as the gravest long-term threat to the U.S. economy," Senator McCain replied:

"Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against radical Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence."

But over the past two weeks, McCain's rapid fire, acrobatic flip-flops have produced whiplash, at least for voters. 10 times since the beginning of June, McCain has retreated from, upended or just forgotten positions he once claimed as his own. On Social Security, balancing the budget, defense spending, domestic surveillance and a host of other issues so far this month, McCain's "Straight Talk Express" did a U-turn on the road to the White House.

Social Security Privatization. John McCain has apparently learned the lesson that the more President Bush spoke about his Social Security privatization scheme, the less popular it became. On Friday, Mr. Straight Talk proclaimed at a New Hampshire event, "I'm not for, quote, privatizing Social Security. I never have been. I never will be." Sadly, McCain and his advisers like ousted HP CEO Carly Fiorina are on record declaring fidelity to the idea of diverting Social Security dollars into private accounts. On November 18, 2004, for example, McCain announced, "Without privatization, I don’t see how you can possibly, over time, make sure that young Americans are able to receive Social Security benefits." And in March 2003, McCain backed his President, declaring, "As part of Social Security reform, I believe that private savings accounts are a part of it - along the lines that President Bush proposed." As they say, let's go to the videotape.

Raising - and Slashing - Defense Spending. As Steve Benen noted Friday, John McCain was also for boosting American defense spending before he was against it. In the November 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, McCain argued "we can also afford to spend more on national defense, which currently consumes less than four cents of every dollar that our economy generates - far less than what we spent during the Cold War." But facing the $2 trillion budgetary hole the McCain tax plan is forecast to produce (a sea of red ink even the Wall Street Journal noticed), Team McCain changed its tune. As Forbes scoffed in amazement:

"McCain's top economic adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, blithely supposes that cuts in defense spending could make up for reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% and the subsequent shrinkage in federal revenues. Get that? The national security candidate wants to cut spending on our national security. Wait until the generals and the admirals hear that."

First Term Balanced Budget Pledge. With its on-again/off-again/on-again promise to balance the budget by January 2013, the McCain campaign executed that rarest of political maneuvers, the 360. During a February 15th rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, "McCain promised he'd offer a balanced budget by the end of his first term." But just days later, McCain's senior economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin announced a deficit-ending target of 2017. In mid-April, Holtz-Eakin proclaimed, "I would like the next president not to talk about deficit reduction." McCain, too, signaled the retreat from his first-term balance budget commitment, explaining to Chris Matthews on April 15th that "economic conditions are reversed."

Apparently economic conditions have improved dramatically since then. On June 6, Holtz-Eakin squared the circle, announcing, "That plan, when appropriately phased in, as it has always been intended to be, will bring the budget to balance by the end of his first term."

The Media's Treatment of Hillary Clinton. No doubt, John McCain suffers from recurring bouts of selective amnesia. And some episodes take only days to manifest themselves. During his disastrous "green screen" speech on June 3, McCain reached out to Hillary Clinton's supporters by proclaiming, "The media often overlooked how compassionately she spoke to the concerns and dreams of millions of Americans, and she deserves a lot more appreciation than she sometimes received." But by June 7, McCain denied to Newsweek that his media critique never passed his lips, "I did not--that was in prepared remarks, and I did not--I'm not in the business of commenting on the press and their coverage or not coverage."

The Estate Tax. Just days before his contortionist act on Social Security, John McCain reversed course on the estate tax as well. On June 8, 2006, McCain on the Senate floor expressed his agreement with Teddy Roosevelt that "most great civilized countries have an income tax and an inheritance tax" and "in my judgment both should be part of our system of federal taxation." But after years of battling Republican colleagues dead-set on dismantling the so-called "death tax" and instead promoting a $5 million trigger, on Tuesday John McCain sounded the retreat. Now, he insists, "the estate tax is one of the most unfair tax laws on the books."

FISA, Domestic Surveillance and Telecom Immunity. When it comes to the Bush administration's program of domestic spying on Americans, McCain has performed similar logical gymnastics. On December 20, 2007, McCain suggested to the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Charles Savage that President Bush had clearly crossed the line. As Wired's Ryan Singel noted:

"I think that presidents have the obligation to obey and enforce laws that are passed by Congress and signed into law by the president, no matter what the situation is," McCain said.

The Globe's Charlie Savage pushed further, asking , "So is that a no, in other words, federal statute trumps inherent power in that case, warrantless surveillance?" To which McCain answered, "I don't think the president has the right to disobey any law."

But on June 2, McCain adviser Holtz-Eakin put that notion to rest, telling the National Review:

"[N]either the Administration nor the telecoms need apologize for actions that most people, except for the ACLU and the trial lawyers, understand were Constitutional and appropriate in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001."

Pressed to explain the glaring inconsistencies, John McCain on June 6 played dumb, deciding that cowardice is the better part of valor. As the New York Times reported, McCain now believes the legality of Bush's regime of NSA domestic surveillance is unclear and, in any event, is old news:

"It's ambiguous as to whether the president acted within his authority or not," he said, saying courts had ruled different ways on the matter. “I'm not interested in going back. I'm interested in addressing the challenge we face to day of trying to do everything we can to counter organizations and individuals that want to destroy this country. So there's ambiguity about it. Let's move forward."

As for immunity for the telecommunications firms cooperating with the White House in what before August 2007 was doubtless illegal surveillance, there too McCain's position has evolved. On May 23, campaign surrogate Chuck Fish announced that McCain would not back retroactive immunity "unless there were revealing Congressional hearings and heartfelt repentance from those telephone and internet companies." Subsequently, the McCain campaign swiftly backtracked, claiming its man supports immunity unconditionally.

Restoring the Everglades. On June 5, John McCain traveled to the Everglades to win over Floridians and environmentally-minded voters. There he proclaimed, "I am in favor of doing whatever's necessary to save the Everglades." Sadly, as ThinkProgress documented, McCain not only opposed $2 billion in funding for the restoration of the Everglades national park, he backed President Bush's veto of the legislation in 2007. "I believe," he said, "that we should be passing a bill that will authorize legitimate, needed projects without sacrificing fiscal responsibility."

1980's Divestment from South Africa. During his June 2 speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), John McCain called for the international community to target Iran for the kind of worldwide sanctions regime applied to apartheid-era South Africa. Unfortunately, McCain's lobbyist-advisers Charlie Black and Rick Davis each represented firms doing business with Tehran. Even more unfortunate, John McCain was frequently not among those offering "moral clarity and conviction" in backing "a divestment campaign against South Africa, helping to rid that nation of the evil of apartheid." As ThinkProgress detailed:

Despite voting to override President Reagan's veto of a bill imposing economic sanctions against South Africa in 1986, McCain voted against sanctions on at least six other occasions.

Fighting Job Losses in Michigan. During the run-up to the Michigan primary, John McCain cautioned workers there in January that he didn't want to raise "false hopes that somehow we can bring back lost jobs," adding that it" wasn't government's job to protect buggy factories and haberdashers when cars replaced carriages and men stopped wearing hats." But after getting trounced in Michigan by Mitt Romney and watching the economy deteriorate further, McCain has had a change of heart. As Bloomberg noted on June 5:

Nowadays, the party's presumptive nominee is singing a different tune, striking a populist pose and saying "new jobs are coming"...

...Over the past few months, however, McCain has taken a lesson from Romney, acknowledging recently that "Americans are hurting.'' Returning to Michigan last month, the Arizona senator told a local television station that he would fight for new jobs and the state wouldn't "be left behind.''

Perhaps the good people of Michigan, as John McCain suggested to a Kentucky audience in April, can make a living on eBay.

Opposing Hurricane Katrina Investigations. During a June 4th town hall meeting in Baton Rouge, John McCain answered a reporter's question regarding Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the New Orleans levees by announcing:

"I've supported every i