Just what embattled Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell needs: a TV ad depicting her as a vulture. Cantwell, who is in a tough re-election fight against former Safeco CEO and Republican Mike McGavick, voted against the permanent repeal of the estate tax earlier this month. The estate tax is only levied on the very wealthiest 1 percent of Americans and is sound public policy, but the extremists who control D.C. are bent on making the rich even richer by eliminating it. The Free Enterprise Fund, a think tank founded by conservative operative Stephen Moore, is airing a TV ad in Washington state that says in part: “When the vultures start to circle, it means they’ve come to take their share of your savings.” Let’s hope the public sees through this nonsense just like they did when these same plutocrats tried to privatize Social Security.