FAIR WARNING

Is Joe Biden the foot-in-mouth candidate - or is he the Obama campaign's designated teller of inconvenient truths?

First, the Democratic veep hopeful declared that America's enemies will generate "an international crisis, to test the mettle of" a President Obama.

Scary - but likely true.

And yesterday Biden let slip that he and Obama apparently have a sliding scale to determine who's "super-rich."

Obama, after all, has been promising a tax cut for the "middle class" - those making $200,000 a year or less.

Biden yesterday lowered that bar.

"What we're saying," he told a Pennsylvania TV interviewer, "is that [our] tax break doesn't need to go to people making . . . $1.4 million. It should go to [people] making under $150,000 a year."

Oops. That's a 25 percent downward redefinition of "middle class."

An Obama mouthpiece quickly dismissed the discrepancy as just another one of Joe the Senator's gaffes.

But consider: The campaign has a new TV commercial out declaring that families - not individuals - earning $200,000 or less would qualify for a tax cut. Two incomes - not one.

And, as most middle-class wage-earners know, that's a huge difference.

As Sen. John McCain said yesterday: "At this rate, it won't be long before Sen. Obama is right back to his vote that Americans making just $42,000 should get a tax increase."

We wouldn't be surprised - what with leading congressional Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank licking their chops at the chance to raise taxes.

"We'll have to raise taxes, ultimately," Frank declared over the weekend.

Don't say you weren't warned.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292008/postopinion/editorials/fair_warning_135862.htm