McCain: The Meaning of Rich

Would you vote for a man who doesn't even know where he lives? Such a man is Senator McCain, who lost count of his residences during a campaign appearance today. Predictably, this provoked a fresh round of petty sniping from Senator Obama's campaign, to which the McCain people responded in kind. McCain and Obama have rarely been seen together so far this year, yet they already strike me as an old married couple finding cause to bicker and snipe at one another (not with guns!) at the drop of a hat. This election seems certain to set new benchmarks for pettiness, but let's not lose the lesson of McCain's confusion. Less than a week ago Rick Warren asked him to define the word "rich" in monetary terms. Married to an heiress, the Arizonan was uncomfortable with the question but offered $5,000,000 as proof that someone was wealthy (Obama chose a far lower number). Numbers can be adjusted for inflation, and the true value of any currency is always relative to other currencies, but having so many homes that you lose track of all of them seems like pretty solid, objective proof that McCain is a rich man -- or that he's just old.