I keep seeing these stories, hoping they’ll get some traction and McCain will be raked across the coals over these things, but he never is. It’s still fun to muse about the potential McCain/Cheney battle over the gas tax. If you’ll recall, Cheney recently assailed the “holiday” idea:

“I think it’s a false notion, in the sense that you’re not going to have much of an impact, given the size of the gasoline tax on the total cost of the gallon of gas,” Cheney said when asked about the matter during a luncheon appearance. “You might buy a little bit of relief there, but it’s minimal.”

Well John McCain was not going to take that sitting down, no sir. Confronted about his idea, the Arizona senator had this to say about his detractors:

McCain said he was struck by the loud opposition by “the elites in this country.”

“The hysterical reaction was a little bit funny,” he said.

In Washington, McCain noted, “the wealthiest people live in Georgetown” and can walk downtown to work. By contrast, he said, the lowest-income workers live the furthest away.

I wonder if he meant to call Cheney an “elite”. I wonder if he realized he was calling Cheney an “elite”. I wonder if he has a goddamn clue what the word “elite” means. I did like this bit at the end:

“John McCain has said the he doesn’t understand the economy, and by trying to score political points with an idea that nearly all economists agree may in fact increase demand and gas prices, he’s proven himself right. Offering our struggling families more of the same Washington gimmicks instead of real relief is not ‘straight talk’ and not the kind of change that America needs.”

Indeed. But then again, completely ignoring what every expert says in order to score political points with a flawed plan is sort of the modus operandi for these guys.