"A noun, a verb and P.O.W."

You might have noticed the McCain campaign trot out the candidate's history as a P.O.W. to explain or excuse any number of issues—despite the fact that the campaign and McCain himself maintain that "they don't like to talk about it."

It's their go-to trump card and applies to everything from:

• His favorite football team
• His healthcare plan
• His publicly humiliating his wife
• The possibility of his cheating in Saturday's Q&A forum.

But today, they played the P.O.W. card in an instance I thought there's no way they could wedge it in...

Yesterday, McCain was asked during an interview about the economy, "how many homes he owns." He couldn't answer the question (link).

Seriously. He didn't know. His actual response was, “I think — I’ll have my staff get back to you.”

Obama pounced in his speech later that day and with an excellent (and lightning-fast) response ad (video here). The McCain Camp's first counter was with the tired and dishonest arugula and preposterous Hawaii elitism attacks on Obama. But today they went the distance...

“This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years — in prison,” spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post.

At what point will the media start to treat this like the bullshit it is? I think Joe Biden's debate riff (down thread) was the tipping point against Guiliani's 9/11 rhetoric that allowed the media to put aside the fact that while 9/11 itself wasn't funny, Guiliani's abuse of the event had officially become a running joke.

I think it's safe for Stewart and Colbert to take the first cracks at this, and it will spread from there.

UPDATE: Added Toles cartoon. h/t Sullivan.