Alexander Lane and Amy Hollyfield of Politifact continue to show that that "fact checking" site might as well be working for the Barack Obama campaign by offering 'Obama would "experiment with socialism."/The McCain campaign experiments with dishonesty' (politifact.org/truth-o-meter/statements/826). It's another example of the MSM taking a statement that wasn't phrased in a painfully legalistic fashion, playing dumb, and then spinning things Obama's way.

In this case, they discuss the following Sarah Palin statement:

"Senator Obama says that he wants to spread the wealth, which means - you know what that means... It means that government takes your money, (handed) out however a politician sees fit. Barack Obama calls it spreading the wealth, and Joe Biden calls higher taxes patriotic. And yet to Joe the Plumber, he said it sounded like socialism. And now is not the time to experiment with socialism."

They then go on to point out correctly that progressive taxation is not socialism, and give her statement their ultra-classy 'Pants on Fire' animated GIF.

If she'd said that Obama's statements to Joe the Plumber were socialistic instead, one wonders how they would have spun it for the benefit of what's clearly their candidate, because what Obama stated was very clearly socialistic.

There's a huge difference between progressive taxation and just spreading the wealth around "because it's good for everybody". The first is to pay for things like roads. The second is a socialistic notion that attempts to normalize incomes. And, the second is what BHO supports. He didn't say the government should tax people just to pay for needed infrastructure. He specifically supported redistribution in and of itself. That doesn't mean he's a socialist, but he does have socialistic notions above and beyond progressive taxation.

More on Politifact here and here.