If John McCain wants to accuse someone of being a socialist, he needs to start with George Bush

John McCain's new talking point is that Obama is a socialist. It's a classic move by the GOP to accuse our side of doing what the Republicans are actually doing. Because, there is, in fact, a socialist lurking in John McCain's world. It's not Obama. It's George Bush.

Given what's happened over the past few weeks, McCain's attack rings hollow. On MSNBC earlier today, Politico's Ben Smith said, "It is a pretty strange thing, I mean, that [McCain's] calling [Obama] a socialist this week when we basically nationalized the banks last week."

From Bonddad:

The US government is now in the bank ownership business.

In fact, the US government's involvement with private enterprise has never been more pronounced than over the last month or so. We've seen unprecedented direct involvement in the capital structure of one of the world's largest insurance companies, the nine largest US banks and the auto industry.

So, who's the socialist again?

Dan Froomkin answered that question in his column on Friday titled, "Bush's Conservative Socialism." Yes, it's Bush. Dan includes this nugget:

Nevertheless, as Brad Delong writes in a Guardian opinion piece: "The Bush administration, having entered office as social conservatives, leaves office as conservative socialists, proprietors of the most sudden large expansion of the state's role in the US economy since mobilisation for the second world war."

Bush new legacy: Socialist.