Should have posted this yesterday, EJ Dionne takes on this bullshit that tax cuts "soak the rich" that's been presented by the WSJ and now Karl Rove. It's amazing how Republicans have turned the phenomenon of the rich getting richer into a sob story of victimization.

Most astonishingly, Rove tried to make the case that Bush's tax cuts actually left the rich paying more. Everyone knows the Bush cuts in levies on dividends, capital gains and inheritances overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy. But here was Rove playing class politics by arguing that the wealthy now pay a larger share of total income taxes than they did before Bush.

This is statistical flimflam, of course. It leaves out payroll taxes, which hit most Americans the hardest. And the wealthy are paying more of the total share of income taxes, even though their rates are much lower, because their share of national income has gone up. Rove's numbers actually prove the rich are getting richer. But the fact that Rove tried to sound like William Jennings Bryan is the surest indicator that the administration is worried about its image as protector of the privileged.

I'm glad someone in the MSM was willing to call bullshit on that one. What astonishes me is that the WSJ can repeatedly editorialize on the phenomenon of rich people being "soaked" by tax rates of about 22% on the richest Americans, not because they've been raised but because they've been lowered. Really, how do they say that with a straight face?