Let’s revisit for a moment McCain’s interview with Katie Couric:

The progosphere has focused on McCain bringing up his POW experience (again).That’s understandable, but there are a couple of other themes here that are worth investigating further.

1.  McCain repeatedly says that he is “blessed” to be so rich — in fact he says it three times.  Here’s the last one:

I am blessed to have the opportunity to be part of a country where you can succeed and do well.

That’s straight out of the “prosperity gospel” concept so popular among evangelicals, particularly mega-church pastors like Joel Osteen, Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes.  So when McCain talks this way, he’s sending a coded message to the evangelical base:  “I am what you want to become.”  Or to put it another way, “I am the wealth we have been waiting for.”

2.  McCain’s answer is almost entirely devoted to a feint:  discussing not his own wealth (or to be more specific, Cindy’s wealth), but talking about how hard his [late] father-in-law, Jim Hensley, worked to “realize. . .the American dream” after returning from WWII.  This also is code, this time to older voters, particularly those of the “Greatest Generation” who already trend towards McCain, that he understands them better than Obama.

3.  McCain may have made a mistake in raising Hensley:  it’s an open invitation for someone to go back and look at how Hensley made his fortune, which according to at least one account, was not exactly what could be called “a role model for many young Americans.”  In fact, like it or not, McCain’s father-in-law was a convicted felon:

In 1948, while working for the Marley operation in Tucson, Mr. Hensley and his brother, Eugene, were convicted of filing false liquor records and conspiracy in the illegal distribution of several hundred cases of whiskey. James Hensley received a suspended sentence and Eugene was sentenced to a year in a federal prison camp. Five years later, James Hensley and Mr. Marley were charged with violating federal liquor laws again, but they were acquitted.

4.  Listen to the answer one more time.  Here’s what he has to say:

We spend our time primarily in Washington, DC, where I have a condominium in Crystal City; here in this beautiful Sedona that I’m blessed every moment I can spend here; our condominium in Phoenix, Arizona; and a place over in San Diego. The others are also for investment purposes.

McCain is admitting that he has four “primary” residences.  Four!  And that, in his mind, is more than enough of an answer.

That’s even more out-of-touch than not knowing how many houses you own.

So come on, fellow bloggers (and mainstream media), move beyond the POW card.  You could say that there’s a wealth of riches here.

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