In a telephone interview with the Orange County Register earlier this week, John McCain acknowledged he was unaware of the price of gas. The OC Register’s Martin Wicksol reports:

WICKSOL: When was the last time you pumped your own gas and how much did it cost?

MCCAIN: Oh, I don’t remember. Now there’s Secret Service protection. But I’ve done it for many, many years. I don’t recall and frankly, I don’t see how it matters.

I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of town hall meetings, many as short a time ago as yesterday. I communicate with the people and they communicate with me very effectively.

Listen here:

McCain’s cluelessness about gas prices is compounded by the fact that he is clueless about what to do about it. He is promoting a gas tax holiday for drivers because he claims to understand “Americans are hurting.” It will provide “a little psychological boost,” McCain said of his plan.

In reality, his gas tax holiday would be worth a mere 60 cents a day for Americans and would be a boon for oil companies and foreign oil-producing nations. It would drive up the deficit. Moreover, the proposal would rob $1.4 billion from “public transportation and severely restrict the industry’s ability to add and improve transit services for a growing number of Americans.”

It seems that gas prices is just one more issue that “is not something” McCain has “understood as well he should.”

Via Huffpost, Newsweek reports that John and Cindy McCain have failed to pay taxes on their beach-front home in La Jolla, California, for the last four years and are about to enter into default. The article reports that the McCains had been delinquent in paying taxes until Newsweek inquired about the matter. The McCains then paid off $6,744.42 in back taxes, but still owe more. Newsweek writes:

When you’re poor, it can be hard to pay the bills. When you’re rich, it’s hard to keep track of all the bills that need paying. It’s a lesson Cindy McCain learned the hard way when NEWSWEEK raised questions about an overdue property-tax bill on a La Jolla, Calif., property owned by a trust that she oversees. [...]

County officials say the trust still owes an additional $1,742 for this year, an amount that is overdue and will go into default July 1. Told of the outstanding $1,742, the aide said: “The trust has paid all bills shown owing as of today and will pay all other bills due.”

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has recently spoken highly of immigration reform — despite running away from the issue during the GOP primary. Speaking before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials today, McCain said immigration reform “will be my top priority yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” In the same speech, however, McCain also said:

Many Americans, with good cause, did not believe us when we said we would secure our borders, and so we failed in our efforts. We must prove to them that we can and will secure our borders first.

McCain is trying to have it both ways. Supporting comprehensive reform and enforcement-first “are two very different approaches,” Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) noted yesterday. “Either he supports comprehensive reform, or he supports an enforcement-first strategy. He cannot have it both ways,” Reyes said.

Earlier this week, the Bush administration the Bush administration announced that it was taking North Korea off the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism after the country declared its nuclear program to the outside world. Vice President Dick Cheney has not hid his disapproval of the move. Now, the Telegraph reports that Cheney tried to block the deal before it happened:

Vice President Dick Cheney fought furiously to block efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to strike a controversial US compromise deal with North Korea over the communist state’s nuclear programme, the Telegraph has learned.

“The exchanges between Cheney’s office and Rice’s people at State got very testy. But ultimately Condi had the President’s ear and persuaded him that his legacy would be stronger if they reached a deal with Pyongyang,” said a Pentagon adviser who was briefed on the battle.

On Friday, the New York Times described the North Korea deal as the State Department’s win in a “major battle against the Cheney camp.”