A Man of the People (as long as they're rich people)

John Kerry on the middle class:

“It’s time to remember a basic truth: a stronger America begins right here at home,” Kerry said. “I believe in building up our great middle class – respecting their work, honoring their values and lifting them up in the toughest of times. [...]

“Working families all across our country are living by the oldest and greatest of American values – hard work, service, and caring for one another,” Kerry said. “And I’m running for President because I believe that our government should live by those values too.”

So how did this champion of the downtrodden spend his weekend? Working hard, caring for one another? Nah.

Thwarted by fog, a flat bicycle tire and a tricky wind, Senator John Kerry spent most of a shortened Father's Day weekend secluded in his wife's seaside retreat here in one of the nation's most exclusive summer playgrounds.

His Boeing 757 campaign plane was grounded in Washington on Friday night when the weather prevented landing at Nantucket's airstrip, which has seen only one jet of such size before. Arriving late Saturday morning, his planned bicycle ride around the island was aborted after he discovered a bubble on his back tire. And on Sunday morning, he sped out to a remote beach in his stepson's powerboat in hopes of kite-surfing, a new extreme sport, only to return home after half an hour without even zipping up his wetsuit.

"The wind died," Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters as he cruised by on the 32-foot Contender, a gentleman's fishing vessel said to cost about $150,000.

Mr. Kerry and his family did dine out Saturday night at the Pearl, where sautéed yuzu-dusted day boat sea scallops go for $36, with his fellow senator from Massachusetts, Edward M. Kennedy, his wife, Vicki, and her parents. But on Sunday afternoon, he canceled a beachside brunch at one of the island's most expensive restaurants, with aides explaining that his two adult daughters preferred a quiet meal at home.

Wealthy liberal politicians drive me crazy. They live a lifestyle most can only imagine, while simultaneously calling conservatives that aspire to such wealth and would like to keep the money we earn in an effort to achieve financial independence, "greedy," or the "winner's of life's lottery," or "elitist."

Kerry is nothing more than a two-faced snob, claiming to want to help "middle class" through income redistribution. If he were true to his rhetoric, he would be calling not for income taxes (he only "earns" a little over $200,000), but for wealth confiscation and redistribution. But that would affect him and his wealthy elite friends, and would be so blatantly Communist (as opposed to progressive income taxes, which are more subtly Communist) so that will never be proposed.

Better to go after those working their way up.

hat tip: Betsy