John McCain’s Top 10 Out-of-Touch Moments

By: Jon Perr
CrooksandLiars
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

In another sign of the media’s sheepish acceptance of the Barack Obama “elitist” story line, the New York Times on Tuesday described the Illinois Senator as “tagged as elitist.” But just as disturbing as the Republicans’ apparent success in establishing the “out of touch” narrative as a fixture in campaign coverage is John McCain’s seeming inoculation from it.

After all, John McCain isn’t merely fabulously well off, courtesy of his wife Cindy’s $100 million beer distribution fortune. At almost every turn, the Republican presidential nominee has shown almost a total ignorance of – or yawning disinterest in – the real lives of American voters. From the growing financial hardships of the economic slowdown and the foreclosure crisis to the disintegrating American health care system and the dangers U.S. troops face on the streets on Baghdad, it is John McCain who is truly “out of touch.” Yet voters and pundits alike agree that the supposed maverick is treated with kid gloves by the press, an elitist masquerading as a man of the people.

Here, then, are John McCain’s Top 10 “Out-of-Touch” Moments:

1. Economic downturn is “psychological.” Having on multiple occasions admitted his limited understanding of the economy, Senator McCain instead turned armchair psychologist to diagnose the U.S economic slowdown. In April, McCain told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that “a lot of our problems today, as you know, are psychological.” Apparently, four months of job losses, oil at $120 a barrel, record gas prices at the pump, 47 million uninsured and a devastating home foreclosure crisis are merely figments of Americans’ imaginations.

2. “Great progress economically” during the Bush years. If Americans’ financial woes are all in their heads, John McCain’s assessment of George W. Bush’s economic leadership is pure hallucination. Asked by Bloomberg’s Peter Cook on April 17 if Americans would say they are better off today “than before George Bush took office more than seven years ago,” McCain replied:

“I think if you look at the overall record and millions of jobs have been created, et cetera, et cetera, you could make an argument that there’s been great progress economically over that period of time.”

Mugged by reality, McCain’s firm response to the classic Ronald Reagan question (”are you better off now?”) lasted exactly 24 hours. The next day on April 18, the so-called maverick acknowledged Americans are “hurting badly” and concluded, “Americans are not better off than they were eight years ago.”

(Continued here.)