This piggybacks on my post yesterday about how the hypocritical Obama doesn’t think spouses’ campaign trail comments are “fair game” in a campaign.  Well, spouses named “Obama”, anyway.  My favorite leftie commenter jen (one “n”, lower-case “j”) asked sarcastically (she knows how to tug on my heart strings, no?  ) if McCain’s wife’s doings were also fair.  I argued in the affirmative.

Anywho, the Examiner has a column on why nominees’ spouses are “fair game” in campaigns, and it pretty much echoes what I said yesterday, but it elaborates.  From the Examiner:

Both Barack Obama and John McCain must accept that spouses of presidential candidates are legitimate subjects of public discussion. Protecting a spouse from intrusion into his or her private life is understandable, but a candidate is wholly mistaken to suggest his wife’s statements on the campaign trail about why he should be elected aren’t fair game for criticism, or when he contends his wife’s sources of income should be of no concern to voters. Obama is guilty of the former, McCain of the latter.

…It is unfair to voters for the Obamas to demand that she be allowed to use fighting words without being subject to, yes, a fight.

…As for McCain, he and wife Cindy refuse to release her tax returns. She has a legal right to keep them private, but legality isn’t at issue here. What is at issue is John McCain’s willingness to be subject to credible transparency and accountability.

Even if a husband and wife officially segregate their incomes, family money is fungible. That is why it has become standard practice for presidential candidates to release their tax returns — so the public can decide for itself if any income sources look fishy. It should it be expected of spouses to do the same.

Mrs. McCain is estimated to be worth as much as $100 million. Just as it was absurd for John Kerry to say his wife’s views or vast fortune should be immune from examination, or for Hillary Clinton not to report her husband’s tens of millions in post-presidency “earnings,” so, too, is it nonsensical for McCain to say his wife’s money is none of the public’s business.

McCain has made a career of railing against the allegedly corrupting influence of money in politics. That fact doesn’t give him a “Get out of Jail Free” card on the issue.

Agreed.  My fellow righties get bent that the MSM wants Cindy Mac’s tax returns released, and while I can easily understand her desire for privacy (and my righties’ annoyance at the MSM agenda), I agree with the Examiner: it is a legit issue to wonder whether any source of her income could derive from a source that could ever cause a conflict of interest while she’s First Lady (if she ever gets to be).

If jen’s allegations that Cindy Mac was a drug abuser and thief are true, then we deserve to know about that, too.  But the left needs to understand: like Anne Heche, this thing goes both ways!