Dana Milbank of the Washington Post complains that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell “held a news conference in the hallway outside the Senate and all but called Obama a socialist.” And what exactly did McConnell say? Milbank goes on:

“They’re running banks, insurance companies, car companies, taking over the student loan business, taking over health care, now, apparently doing to the financial services industry what they did to the health-care industry, doubling the national debt in five years, tripling it in 10,” he railed. “They’ve got people over at the FCC trying to take over the Internet. This is a massive government overreach.”

So McConnell didn’t call anybody a socialist. He just listed President Obama’s policies — accurately, it seems to me. And Milbank listened to that list and said “hey, you’re calling him a socialist!”

We’ve been cautious here at Cato about calling anybody a socialist. But if Milbank thinks a description of Obama’s policies amounts to “all but calling him a socialist,” I’ll just let his analysis stand.