Clinton & McCain

This post is going to reverse a couple of things I've said before. Which in current neocon parlance makes me a "flip flopper", but to me makes me "willing to change my opinion when new facts come to light".

First, from a while back... I've criticized Hillary Clinton since she gave up her campaign for the Presidency for what I viewed as a tepid level of support for her party's nominee. Many of her appearances seemed calculated to appear wholeheartedly supportive while still saying just the right things to nurture the continued feeling of disaffected alienation in her most ardent supporters.

Well, having criticized before, I need to now give her credit, her speech at the Democratic Convention undid all of that. She could not have been more clear nor more forceful in her support of Mr. Obama, and so while it is late in coming, it is definitely not TOO late, and if it signals the new message she's going to be giving, I give her kudos for getting on board.



Second, John McCain. In a recent piece about him, I repeated the line that he "doesn't know how many houses he owns." It's true, but it's irrelevant except in one regard. The point I had intended to make was to point out how it's hard to buy the McCain portrait of Obama as the elitist when McCain has multiple houses (more on that in a minute).

But let me be clear: I'm not offended that he doesn't actually know the count, and my point in this has been proven over the last few days as everyone else debates the count as well. One of the McCain family properties is a compound which includes a main house, a guest house and a "servants quarters" house. Do you count this as one "home" or three "houses"? Do apartments count? Condos? Investment properties in which he and his wife never reside?

My wife and I own either one house, three or ten, depending on how you count them. I would tell people I have ONE house, because I do not live in the others. But in terms of actual ownership, we own two other buildings as investment properties, which would make for three, even though we live in neither. And there are a total of 9 apartments in those three buildings, which one might argue make for 10 residences.

So the answer to the question is not necessarily straightforward, even at the modest income level my wife and I are at, and clearly any of the three answers I might give could be spun by someone as being "untruthful" if the accuser decided to choose a different counting strategy.

I also read an interesting take on the charge of "elitism" which I'm still mulling over: According to the opiner, the world "elitism" means different things to those on the left and the right. To me, the elite are those whose incomes are in the top few percentage points. Those who have sufficient resources to own multiple residences for their own personal use and who own their own jets, and who (and I have at least one member of my family (mine, not Janet's) who feels this way) have odd notions about what the average person can live on (*).

But apparently to many on the right, "elitism" isn't a state of having, it's a state of mind, and so when the charge comes up, it's leveled at those who have completed college and shown a certain level of intellectual ability.

Now, we can argue all night long as to whether either of these necessarily is a BAD thing in a President. I would say that the financial elitists might have a leg up on experience with high finance (part of the President's job) but lose touch with average American citizens. I have yet to figure out why anyone thinks it's somehow a negative to have a smart President(**).

But it's interesting that we might be using the same term and arriving at entirely different meanings.

Liam.

(*) This particular member of my family once mentioned off hand to me that their own salary was "ok as a second income" (their spouse works) but wasn't something "anyone could live on" (this was several years ago, the quotes are approximate). I didn't bother to mention to this family member that the amount they were quoting was about 20% higher than my own salary at the time, a salary on which I manage to feed, house and clothe two adults and five children in relative comfort.

(**) In fairness, this isn't entirely true. I had one friend argue somewhat persuasively that part of why Carter was somewhat ineffective was that he was intelligent enough to see the gray in situations others might see only in black and white, and thus had a harder time making definitive choices than someone who sees the world in more binary terms. I'm not sure whether I fully agree with it, but it was interesting and it was at least one attempt to explain to me the argument I said I "have yet to figure out".