I find it interesting that deep into this article from Newsweek we find that the reason for the non-payment of property taxes by Cindy McCain is misdirected mail, but the first sentence of the article on the other hand tries to paint it as Cindy being too rich to bother with paying the taxes…..quite dishonest:
When you’re poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you’re rich, it’s hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It’s a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. Mrs. McCain is a beer heiress with an estimated $100 million fortune and, along with her husband, she owns at least seven properties, including condos in California and Arizona.
San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response. County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain’s trust, were returned by the post office. According to a McCain campaign aide, who requested anonymity when discussing a private matter, an elderly aunt of Mrs. McCain’s lives in the condo, and the bank that manages the trust has not been receiving tax bills on the property.
This is the worst they can come up with? The fact that she set up a trust to house a elderly family member and the bills were sent to the wrong address? Weak man….weak. (and it took four writers to do it!…”By Suzanne Smalley, Andrew Murr, Mark Hosenball and Nathan Dinsdale”)
McCain’s opponents want to compare this to Al Franken and his serial tax problems in as many as twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia. Unfortunately, there are very important differences:
* Al Franken is the candidate, and Cindy McCain is not
* Franken actually ran the business that was supposed to pay the taxes, acting as CEO and COO
* Franken has campaigned on the issue of CEO responsibilities and legal complianceI have no problem with people criticizing Cindy McCain for anything she says or does on the campaign trail. That’s fair game, as it is with Michelle Obama. Anything else seems like really weak tea, just as I wrote when people began tearing Mrs. Obama’s college thesis apart. Cackling with glee over an error made by a trust that serves to keep a relative in comfort in her last years seems a lot worse than the actual mistake itself.
A good dissection of the article but I can’t agree with Ed over the Michelle Obama part. Misdirected mail and a overdue bill is not the same as writing a angry tirade against this country, or telling all that will listen that you have never been proud of your country. Just not the same. On the one hand we have a candidates wife who didn’t pay a bill due to a legitimate mistake. On the other we have a candidates wife who basically says she is ashamed of her country.
Its just sad, but not surprising, that Michelle Obama goes on tirades about this country and the MSM barely mentions it. But misdirected mail and they jump all over it as a class warfare issue…..geez.
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