DRAFT DODGER ON TAX DODGERS

I fear the president’s opinions on income taxes aren’t getting the publicity they should. From The Associated Press:

Bush criticized Kerry’s plan to eliminate the tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 a year, saying that the “the rich in America happen to be the small business owners” who put people to work.

Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because “the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway.”

As baleful a look as I cast toward the White House over this, the real disappointment is the media, whose response to this has been stunningly apathetic. This is not a dime-a-dozen Bushism worth a roll of the eyes, but a policy statement made publicly to voters. The reporter spoke to a Kerry campaign spokesman in Virginia, who sniped appropriately that “George Bush can speak with authority about really rich people. ... That’s his base, so I’m sure he knows what he’s talking about. But that doesn’t make it right.”

It’s also not right that the Bush campaign or the White House hasn’t been asked about this. The reticence is hard to understand.

By the way, I missed this Bush quote from Aug. 9 until alerted to look at the blog “How did I get in this handbasket?” The site has some brilliant posts, and it’s easy to read them all, because it’s brand-new. My only complaint with the site stems from my millennial pet peeve: The use of the popular “Sesame Street” color alerts refers to “terror” instead of “terrorism.”