Obama and socialism

I don't tend to get very worked up about campaign rhetoric until it reaches extremes. Maybe I have just become numbed to it. But there is no doubt that the McCain team is crossing the line from exaggeration to insanity. The latest message is to brand Obama a socialist, which is laughable, though not as insulting to my intelligence as saying that his policies are just like Cuba's.

I did a double take on that one. From Mel Martinez:

"Where I come from, where I was raised, they tried wealth redistribution," the Cuban-American senator said. "We don't need that here. That's called socialism, communism -- not Americanism."

Say what? I mean, seriously, where do you even start with that one?

Kudos, then, to Colin Powell, who had this to say:

"Taxes are always a redistribution of money. Most of the taxes that are redistributed go back to those who pay them -- in roads and airports and hospitals and schools," President Bush's former secretary of state said. "And taxes are necessary for the common good, and there's nothing wrong with examining what our tax structure is or who should be paying more, who should be paying less.

"For us to say that makes you a socialist, I think, is an unfortunate characterization that isn't accurate."