Little Rustic Cabin
by digby
Jamison Foser talks about the odd obsession the press corps has for Democratic candidates’ finances while ignoring the finances of the much richer Mr and Mrs John McCain. He specifically mentions their descriptions of McCain’s so-called cabin in Sedona as an example of the double standard:
[T]he news media — McCain’s “base” — don’t treat him the way they treat other (particularly Democratic) candidates. And so you probably haven’t heard or read a word — not a single word — about John McCain’s wealth during a news report about his tax policies. Indeed, you probably haven’t heard or read a word about his wealth during any news report.
Certainly not during the recent wave of reporters gushing over McCain after he hosted them for a March 2 barbeque at his Arizona “cabin.”
The Arizona Republic described it as a “rustic cabin”; National Public Radio described it as a “weekend cabin”; The New York Times called it McCain’s “cabin near Sedona, Ariz.”; the Associated Press called it a “cabin”; and The Washington Post — which devoted two articles to the barbeque — agreed that it is a “rustic cabin.”
If a presidential candidate cooking outdoors at his “rustic cabin” conjures images of Abraham Lincoln and a modest log cabin, that is no doubt fine with McCain.
But McCain’s “cabin” isn’t quite like what you might imagine a “rustic cabin” to be. For one thing, there’s a pool. For another, the cabin has a guest house and has been featured in Architectural Digest.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with the fact that John McCain’s cabin is so luxurious that it has a guest house out by the pool. Good for John McCain. But given the media mockery of John Edwards and John Kerry for their expensive homes, it’s a little odd to see McCain’s lavish home described so modestly as a “rustic cabin.” Edwards and Kerry were lambasted as out-of-touch elites in part because of their houses; McCain’s is described in the most favorable possible terms.
Kerry, of course, wasn’t just mocked for living in a large house; journalists went out of their way to point out that his wife owns the house. There was Tucker Carlson on CNN saying “Kerry wants to mortgage his wife’s house in Boston for a campaign loan.” And The New York Times emphasized that Kerry was scheduled “to fly to his wife’s house in western Pennsylvania.” And Fox’s Carl Cameron: “Kerry mortgaged the Beacon Hill mansion his wife purchased for them 10 years ago and loaned his campaign $6 million.”
Well, guess who owns John McCain’s “rustic cabin” — the one with the guest house and the pool? Cindy McCain, the wealthy and politically connected Arizona beer heiress McCain married shortly after leaving his first wife, and just in time to move to Arizona to run for Congress.
Here again, in case you missed it, is the press relaxing at Cindy McCain’sArchitectural Digest “rustic cabin.”
It’s a beautiful rich man’s retreat. I’m sure the press loved it. Lucky flyboy. But shouldn’t anyone who has such an incredible second home be subject to a little financial scrutiny, particularly when he’s made his reputation as a seeker of redemption for an earlier financial transgression (which also involved his wealthy wife?) And especially since it’s been recently reported that he has been much closer to lobbyists than was previously acknowledged? (Of course, that story was disappeared as well, in a flurry of remonstrations among the press corps against the NY Times’ descent into tabloid news coverage. They evidently wanted them to keep the space available for hard news stories about Spitzer’s call girls’ MYSpace pages.)
Nada, nothing. But then living well — IOKIYAR. If you’re a Democrat you must either be a crook or a hypocrite. Everybody knows that.
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