Hit or Flop?
The reviews are beginning to come in for John McCain’s extraordinary act of political theater—and they’re boffo:
[H]ere [Bill Clinton] is from this morning’s GMA, just a week after calling McCain a “great man” and mere hours before stressing how “personally, profoundly honored” he is to have him speak at his charity. This must be the first time since … ever that he and Gingrich have agreed on something. Think he’s enjoying feeding The One this turdburger in bite-sized morsels as thanks for all the racial demagoguery thrown at him during the primary?
Of course, that opinion is not universal:
[P]erhaps McCain hopes the gesture would make him look as if he were putting politics aside amid an emergency.
…
McCain’s desire to seize the initiative is understandable, for the meltdown on an ill-regulated Wall Street is the harshest indictment possible of Republican stewardship of the economy.
But as is so often the case, it’s the man behind the curtain who directs the players:
“I want [Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae] to help with affordable housing, to help low-income families get loans and to help clean up this subprime mess. Otherwise, why should they exist?”
- Rep. Barney Frank, earlier this month.
The Subprime Panic of ’08 and its $1 trillion (and rising!) price tag is too big to blame on any one man. But if we had to, it would be Newton’s own Rep. Barney Frank.
As Winston Churchill might have put it, never before has one man done so much that was so wrong, or shafted so many on behalf of so few.
Entire business sections of newspapers, including this one, have been dedicated to explaining how we got into this mess, and still the typical taxpayer is asking “So what happened?”
The answer is actually quite simple: Freddie and Fannie happened. And they couldn’t have without the ferocious support of Barney Frank.
As a resident of the Commonwealth that brought you Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and Barney Frank, let me just paraphrase the old bumper sticker: Blame me, I live in Massachusetts.
Kathy said,
September 25, 2008 @ 11:40 am
I think John McCain is in keeping with his character to put his country first. Bob Schieffer this morning on Today said that Paulson had asked McCain to help through one of his surrogates Lindsey Graham.
Obama comes off as a petulant child: “AWWWWW! I don’t wanna be a senator - I wanna be a president! Let’s talk about that some more. Umkay?”
The nation wants to change the subject from Mr. Obama to the financial crisis, and he isn’t willing. It leaves me to wonder how grave the problem would need to become before Obama would consider it worthy of his attention.
Bloodthirsty Liberal said,
September 25, 2008 @ 11:53 am
Don’t forget, Kathy, Obama boasts he can multi-task. And he’s got a big ol’ honkin’ plane with his logo on it to take him anywhere he needs to go. He’s like Superman.
McCain can’t even send an email.
Barb said,
September 25, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306370789279709
This might be off-topic a little, but everything is relevant, in the long run.