Jake Tapper reports that on the stump this week Barack Obama accused McCain and Palin of promoting "selfishness" by opposing tax hikes:
"The reason that we want to do this, change our tax code, is not because I have anything against the rich," Obama said in Sarasota, Florida, yesterday. "I love rich people! I want all of you to be rich. Go for it. That's the America dream, that's the American way, that's terrific. "The point is, though, that -- and it's not just charity, it's not just that I want to help the middle class and working people who are trying to get in the middle class -- it's that when we actually make sure that everybody's got a shot - when young people can all go to college, when everybody's got decent health care, when everybody's got a little more money at the end of the month - then guess what? Everybody starts spending that money, they decide maybe I can afford a new car, maybe I can afford a computer for my child. They can buy the products and services that businesses are selling and everybody is better off. All boats rise. That's what happened in the 1990s, that's what we need to restore. And that's what I'm gonna do as president of the United States of America. "John McCain and Sarah Palin they call this socialistic," Obama continued. "You know I don't know when, when they decided they wanted to make a virtue out of selfishness."
Got that? Obama loves rich people, but he thinks that John McCain and Sarah Palin--and presumably any one else who opposes his tax plan regardless of their income--are promoting "selfishness." In other words, opposition to Obama's tax increases is based on greed rather than a good faith disagreement about what is best for the economy and our country. This isn't the first time the Obama campaign has questioned the motives of those who oppose tax hikes. As you may recall, Joe Biden said that it's " patriotic" for the rich to pay higher taxes (which means that those who oppose tax increases are unpatriotic). I'd say that these remarks show that Obama's new style of politics is a sham. But from the very beginning the real meaning of Obama's inspirational rhetoric about 'bringing us all together' was that those who opposed Obama and the Democrats were the enemies of "unity" and "hope." In his 2004 convention speech, right after he proclaimed that "we are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America," he framed the election between Bush and Kerry as a choice between "a politics of cynicism" and "a politics of hope." It's not very surprising that Obama and his running mate have now called those same cynics unpatriotic and selfish.