The Presidential campaign on the Republican side has really become ridiculous, with nonsense talk of “socialism” (I guess that’s what the kids are calling the progressive tax system nowadays).  Here, Arnold Schwarzenegger tries to defend it by playing the “I was born in socialist Europe” card (expect this to be part of his campaign address for John McCain in Ohio next week):

• Schwarzenegger seemed to embrace language that Republican John McCain has been using in his latest attacks against Democrat Barack Obama related to “redistribution of wealth.”

“I left Europe because of the socialistic kind of environment and the way countries were run and the way government was on your back and therefore stifled the opportunities in Europe and that’s why I came to America,” he said. “So I hope — and that’s why I’ve been always involved in campaigning for political leaders that I believe in, because I wanted to do everything that I can to make sure that America doesn’t go back to those days of 40 years ago when I left Europe, that we go back to that system of redistribution of wealth that some people are talking about. There is no redistribution of wealth.”

“Redistribution of wealth,” apparently, is raising the top tax rate from 36% to 39%.  Ooh!  Why don’t you just give everybody borscht as well? (By the way, hasn’t Arnold called for new taxes to fill the budget gap?  Um, Arnold, isn’t that, er, redistributing wealth?)

But that’s not half as embarrassing as this exchange with CNN’s Campbell Brown:

BROWN: Do you think she’s qualified to be president?

SCHWARZENEGGER: I think that she will get to be qualified.

BROWN: She will get there? What do you mean? She’s not ready yet?

SCHWARZENEGGER: By the time that she is sworn in I think she will be ready.

OK, today is October 23.  Inauguration Day is January 20.  Exactly what is going to happen over three months that would suddenly make Sarah Palin qualified for the office of the Presidency?

The answer, of course, is nothing.  But Arnold is a loyal Republican soldier and a “Free To Choose” economic royalist, so he can’t see that.  What a fraud.