When John McCain was asked by Rev. Rick Warren to define "rich" at Saturday's faith forum at Warren's Saddleback Church, he didn't just pick the figure $5 million out of his hat.

McCain has flip-flopped to favor continuing the Bush tax cuts on the top 1 percent of wealthy Americans. But McCain went 10 times farther than Bush at the faith forum, expressing his reluctance to tax all but the wealthiest .1 percent of Americans – those making $5 million or more a year.

There is more evidence the $5 million figure wasn't merely random: McCain's economic plan sets $5 million as the minimum threshold for imposing any amount of estate tax.

The number was also used by conservative commentator and actor Ben Stein during the June 11 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, when he misrepresented Sen. Barack Obama's tax plan to raise the capital gains tax rate on the wealthiest earners. Said Stein: "I'm very worried about increasing the capital gains tax, unless you want to just increase it on people that are terribly wealthy," whom he defined as "people that have an income of $5 million a year or more."

It is interesting how the privileged class represented by McCain feel entitled to every advantage money can buy, including tax breaks. Even more interesting is how the definition of rich always drifts upward, particularly among those for whom the word has lost all humility. As the Wall Street Journal noted of a recent study:

Just as there are two economies today — the rich and everyone else — there are also diverging definitions of rich. There’s America’s definition (the top 5%) and the wealthy’s definition.

A new survey by Chicago-based Spectrem Group asked affluent households (those with investible assets of $500,000 or more) how much it takes to be rich. Of the respondents, 45% said $5 million or more, 25% said $25 million or more, and 8% said $100 million (It’s a good bet that the 8% lives in Manhattan or Silicon Valley.)

Yes, John McCain believes the definition of rich starts at $5 million. Pity the poor American who earns only $1 million.