No one knows who they were, or what they were doing

The McCain campaign has devolved into a machine that spits out the most amazing lies at a breakneck pace. Consider this “interview” (aka as an unpaid political advertisement) on Fox News this morning:

John McCain: I’m very pleased with what happened at the debate, because it helped define the issues with the American people. And Joe the Plumber is the average citizen, and Joe the Plumber is now speaking for millions of small business people all over America, and they’re becoming aware that ‘we need to spread the wealth around’ is not what small business people want. And before we go into this business of, well, they wouldn’t be taxed, etc., 50% of small business income would be taxed under Senator Obama’s plan. That’s 16 million small business jobs in America, and that’s what Joe the Plumber’s figure d out. Finally, could I just say, where are we in America where a candidate for president comes to a person’s driveway, he asks him a question, doesn’t like the answer, and all of a sudden he’s savaged by the candidate’s people?Savaged by them. Here’s a guy who’s a private citizen. What’s that all about?”
…
John McCain: “I think his plans are redistribution of the wealth. He said himself, we need to spread the wealth around. Now…”
Fox News’ Chris Wallace: “Is that socialism?”
John McCain: “That’s one of the tenets of socialism, but it’s more the liberal left, which he’s always been in. He’s always been in the left lane of American politics. That’s why he voted 94 times against any tax cuts or for tax increases. That’s why he voted for the Democratic budget resolution that would raise taxes on some individuals who make $42,000 a year. That’s why he has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate.”
Wallace: “But, Senator, when we talk…”
John McCain: “So is one of the tenets of socialism redistribution of wealth? Not just socialism, a lot of other liberal and left wing philosophies. Redistribution of the wealth, I don’t believe in it. I believe in wealth-creation by Joe the Plumber.”

It is of course an unambiguous lie of the first order that the Obama campaign is attacking Joe the Plumber (I feel like I lost ten IQ points just typing that sentence). But the bigger and more important lie in all this is the claim that Obama wants to redistribute incomes and McCain doesn’t. All politics redistributes incomes. It’s a sign of the severe retardation of our political discourse — and the fantastic success of right-wing propaganda over the last generation — that it’s necessary to point this out. Here’s how 30 years of largely GOP rule have redistributed incomes.

It’s an oversimplification to say that the Republican party exists for the sole purpose of redistributing as much of the nation’s wealth as possible into the hands of the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population, and that everything else — the cultural wars over abortion and gay rights and the death penalty and drugs and crime and the terrorists — is just a dry-ice machine at a rock concert, obscuring the descent of a severely undersized Stonehenge monolith onto the stage of American political life.

Barely.