In case you thought John McCain was not a bonehead...

McCain: Social Security Is "An Absolute Disgrace"
by SusanG at DailyKos
Wed Jul 09, 2008

Via Mother Jones, a direct quote from John McCain at a town hall meeting in Denver Monday:

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.

How about this for a disgrace: You're running for president and you apparently don't understand that the system -- arguably the most successful ever delivered by the federal government -- was set up to run precisely this way more than half a century ago.

Over at Mother Jones, Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, expresses his own wonderment:

That is truly an amazing quote. It's like he's saying, "I just found out that taxes come from people...that's a disgrace." It betrays a really quite scary lack of knowledge about basic government.... I know he's not into this kind of stuff, but ... it would be hard not to know about the intergenerational financing of Social Security. It's the biggest government transfer—1/5 of the damn budget. I guess the quote suggests he knows about the financing, but the way he says it, it sounds like he just found out and is shocked.

I can't imagine how this will play if it goes at all viral. Maybe Social Security is no longer the third rail, but to call it a disgrace ought to be seen as over the top. On the other hand, maybe people will agree with him.

Every time McCain opens his mouth these days, he seems to be expressing either ignorance or disdain (or an impatient combination, as when he got flippy with questioners who discovered he didn't know the price of gas). And it should prove interesting to see how McCain's abhorrence of Social Security -- and his plan to "fix" it (or eliminate it?) -- plays with one of the few demographics he dominates: senior citizens, most of whose lives are undoubtedly eased by this absolutely disgraceful program.