"It's not that I want to punish your success," Obama replied.  "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success, too . . . When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

This mild remark has gotten some of the leading lights of conservative media all in a tizzy.  The Murdoch-owned New York Post weighed in, claiming that the wealthy already pay too much in taxes:

Remember, Obama's tax hikes target folks who already bear the brunt of the burden: The top 20 percent of earners already pay 69 percent of all federal taxes - and 88 percent of income taxes.

(Contrast that with John McCain's call yesterday for real tax cuts - halving the capital-gains levy, scrapping taxes on unemployment benefits altogether - designed to prime the economic pump.)

Isn't it odd that the only taxes the Post thinks are "real tax cuts" are those provided for non-labor earnings like capital gains on investments, and unemployment benefits?  I'm all for scrapping taxes on unemployment benefits—I've always thought they were punitive—but capital gains?  CAPITAL GAINS?  So working folk don't deserve tax cuts, but the wealthy and unemployed do?

Meanwhile, Tom Bevan of the right-leaning Real Clear Politics thinks this "gaffe" provides an opening for McCain in tonight's debate:

With the financial crisis dominating so much of the discussion, McCain has less freedom to make the traditional liberal vs. conservative critique on other issues like abortion or gun rights without appearing to go off topic.  But Obama handed McCain a golden opportunity this week by being caught on tape telling a plumber in Ohio that his economic plan seeks to "spread the wealth around."  That phrase that neatly captures for McCain the attack that Obama is a liberal income redistributionist who wants to take from the haves and give to the have nots.

It's always fascinating to watch ideologues fall so in love with their positions, they can't see how anyone else wouldn't either.  Of course Republican activist Tom Bevan thinks McCain making some sort of "anti-class warfare", supply-side argument would be brilliant tonight.  Doesn't everyone hate the idea of some of the most concentrated wealth in the world being lightly redistributed to unemployed Americans, lower-income Americans, and children, through social services, retirement benefits, educational needs, and infrastructural projects?  Who the hell wants all that?

I sure think it would be great if McCain attacked Obama tonight for wanting to reverse decades of the widest income inequality our nation has ever known.  In the midst of the greatest economic calamity since the Great Depression, brought on by a Wall Street greed that would make Gordon Gekko blush, on a day when the stock market dropped yet another 733 points, I can think of nothing better than for McCain to shout at Obama "quit picking on the fat cats"!