Yesterday, Biden proved he’s the perfect attack dog compliment to Obama by coming out swinging at McCain and the housing kerfuffle. With the same touch that enabled him to jab at Giuliani, he joked:
“Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine. You sit there at night before you put the kids — after you put the kids to bed and you talk, you talk about what you need. You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It’s a pretty hard experience. He’ll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at,” Biden said, drawing cheers from the audience.
Well done, Biden. A perfect way to put it so everyone can get an easy handle on the situation. In full, flailing damage control mode, McCain responded:
“I am grateful for the fact that I have a wonderful life,” McCain said. “I spent some years without a kitchen table, without a chair, and I know what it’s like to be blessed by the opportunities of this great nation. Cindy’s father, who barely finished high school, went off and distinguished himself in World War II in a B-17 and came back with practically nothing and realized the American dream, and I am proud and grateful for that, and I think he is a role model to many young Americans who serve in the military and come back and succeed.”
McCain is entering dangerous territory here. The more he invokes his time as a POW in response to absolutely everything, the more it turns into a joke for late-night television and less a badge of honor by which he can hold himself above Obama. He’s threatening to damage not just his political brand, but cheapen the impact mentioning his traumatic experience would normally have.
I sure hope those in the military and their families take notice of this behavior.
As do I. Honestly I’m tired of writing it, but the repetition and frequency of it has made it impossible not to take notice. It’s like a man who keeps stepping on rakes. After one you’re mildly amused, but after three in a row you become transfixed.