From One No-Win Situation To Another
by sarabeth at 6:00 am on September 25th, 2008 in 2008 Presidential, St. John McCainIt’s hard to know what John McCain was thinking, of course, and this whole campaign suspension thing is patently ludicrous, but at some level you have to sympathize with the poor guy. How was he to guess that this crappy idea would blow up in his face? None of the previous crappy ideas had. And what was the poor sod to do anyway? He’d already made a complete ass of himself in twenty different ways just in the last few days. There’s no way he was going to survive a debate with Obama on Friday.
Not with Obama hitting him on his fumbling, bumbling response to the financial sector meltdown:
When the crisis on Wall Street began, and the markets began tanking nine days ago, the very first message from John McCain was, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.” That didn’t work, and McCain dropped the line.
His second message was that he wanted to see a commission investigate how and why the crisis happened. That made McCain appear confused, so he dropped that line, too.
His third message was in opposition to the AIG bailout. That didn’t last, and McCain took the opposite position 24 hours later.
His fourth message was to fire Christopher Cox from the Securities and Exchange Commission. That turned out to be ridiculous, and McCain dropped the line, too.
His fifth message was to blame lobbyists, influence peddlers, and the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That became problematic given the lobbyists and former Fannie/Freddie officials on McCain’s payroll.
Not with Obama giving him grief over how deeply trammeled he is with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lobbyists, and how consistently he and his campaign have misrepresented campaign manager Rick Davis’s ongoing financial relationship with Freddie Mac:
Not with Obama having thoroughly wrested the initiative from McCain on responding to the thoroughly misconceived Paulson bailout proposal:
“At 8:30 this morning, Senator Obama called Senator McCain to ask him if he would join in issuing a joint statement outlining their shared principles and conditions for the Treasury proposal and urging Congress and the White House to act in a bipartisan manner to pass such a proposal,†said Bill Burton, the spokesman for the Obama campaign.
“At 2:30 this afternoon,†he added, “Senator McCain returned Senator Obama’s call and agreed to join him in issuing such a statement.â€
The reason why Obama apparently thought it made sense to call McCain in the first place is that when McCain finally got around to articulating his position on the bailout plan — 48 hours after Obama — his position turned out to be pretty much identical to Obama’s.
Presumably, the campaign suspension stunt was supposed to be McCain’s brilliant escape from the no-win situation he found himself in. But McCain’s real talent seems to lie in placing himself in one no-win situation after another. And so that’s all he ended up achieving.
Harry Reid has hung out the unwelcome mat on Capitol Hill:
I understand that the candidates are putting together a joint statement at Senator Obama’s suggestion. But it would not be helpful at this time to have them come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation’s economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op.
Both Obama and the American people have already rejected McCain’s plan to postpone Friday’s debate.
So now McCain can look foolish by showing up for the debate after all, or look even more foolish by staying away.
Or maybe this is the key to the master plan:
McCain supporter Sen. Lindsey Graham tells CNN the McCain campaign is proposing to the Presidential Debate Commission and the Obama camp that if there’s no bailout deal by Friday, the first presidential debate should take the place of the VP debate, currently scheduled for next Thursday, October 2 in St. Louis.
Assuming that Obama and Biden stick to their plan (the original plan), and McCain sticks to his plan and skips the presidential debate and shows up for the VP debate, we would have the perfectly ludicrous spectacle of Obama winning the presidential debate by a TKO, McCain debating Biden on October 2, and Baby Sarah once again being saved from a fate worse than death.
(In fact, there is a school of thought which holds that it was the unmitigated debacle of Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric — broadcast last night but taped early in the day — that caused the panic that precipitated McCain’s high jinks):
While there’s certainly a lot going on right now, I’m pretty confident that if McCain hadn’t engaged in his late afternoon theatrics, (two devastating Palin clips) would have been in heavy circulation tonight and tomorrow, especially in light of the mini-press corps revolt that everyone was talking about yesterday.
I think the McCain campaign knew the Couric interview would be a disaster as soon as it was done taping and spent much of the day frantically trying to think of a way to push it out of the headlines. The clincher for me is the fact that McCain cancelled his Letterman appearance at the last second and instead sat down for an impromptu interview with, of all people, Katie Couric. The hope was to bump the Palin interview even on the CBS Evening News, which otherwise would have hyped and teased the Palin interview all afternoon and used it to lead the broadcast. Instead, CBS devoted most of its coverage to McCain and played segments of the Palin interview almost as an afterthought. Mission accomplished.
Who knows what concatenation of panics actually set McCain off? All that’s clear is that something made him soil his pants.)
Howard wrote:
In 2006, to avoid the melt down we’re experiencing today, the Republicans and Alan Greenspan wanted legislation for regulation and oversight regarding fannie Mae and Freddie Mac … but, the Democrats blocked it. The same Democrats, Pelosi and Reid, with the 15% favorability rating. Now, with the biggest bail out in history, Reid criticizes McCain for wanting to participate in the solution. And, if Obama gets elected, we could also face four years of a tax and spend White House and Congress … who will be responsible for oversight. It’s called having the foxes guarding the hen house … again.
Posted 25 Sep 2008 at 1:28 pm ¶
Rachel wrote:
Howard, Republicans are deregulators. Period. They pushed legislation through in 2000 led by Phil Graham that DEREGULATED THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY. John McCain is a deregulator. He’s been very vocal about it. True about the Fannie and Freddie regulation when the real estate market started to show cracks from the 6 years of hands off. A lot of damage had been done by then and that still did not address all of the banks, insurance (AIG) or other corporations that hadn’t been regulated since 2000. Most Americans aren’t gonna be fooled by some spin that says Republicans including John McCain were on the right side. They screwed this up royaly ($700 BILLION).
Posted 25 Sep 2008 at 3:49 pm ¶
matt wrote:
>to avoid the melt down we’re experiencing today, the Republicans and Alan Greenspan
to avoid the meltdown we’re experiencing today, easy al could have been more responsible in setting interest rates. he wasn’t.
Posted 25 Sep 2008 at 4:22 pm ¶
brenda wrote:
In the South, there is an expression. It’s “Shinning Your Ass” That’s the reason Obama thinks the debate is more important than taking care of business. He wants the chance to shine his ass (Show Off) for the nation.
The true leader here, is the man who wants to cancel the debate and take care of the country. We are in terrible trouble people, it isn’t just your mortgage payment or gas prices anymore.
Posted 25 Sep 2008 at 6:09 pm ¶
Melanie wrote:
John McCain is completely ready for the debate on Friday. He is not holding up the deal because he is against the bail-out. He is just stalling to give Sarah Palin more time to prepare for her debate with Joe Biden. I am a republican and even I am disgusted with McCain and his whole campaign. He is shady, clueless and cannot relate to middle class America. I am seriously considering voting for Obama.
Posted 25 Sep 2008 at 7:15 pm ¶
LVKpride wrote:
I can’t understand why they can’t fix a fixed interest rate that is decent and refinance some of these loans.
That way it would take care of some of the problems that these companies created.
Helping Main Street and Wall Street, the ones that issue these loans. They might have to take a lose but they created this mess.
Why should the taxspayers have to pay for their mistakes.
I hope that common sense is used in this decision.
We the people would like to know the whole contents of the proposal before it is passed.
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 3:26 am ¶
kiel wrote:
Is, and I quote Brenda, “Shinning your Ass” like “Kicking Ass?” Because the way she spelled it, it definitely refers to two body parts.
I would remind her and all the rest of the people who are so bamboozled by empty stunts that it was Obama who called McCain 8:30 Wednesday to urge him that they come up with a joint statement and plan. And “great leader” McCain didn’t return the call until 2:30 in the afternoon, and then announced the plan to the public as if it were his own.
Sheesh people. Pay attention.
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 5:18 am ¶
walter redd wrote:
I have noticed that a lot of American voters are just mindless racists.If you vote McDummy in and you find your country turning into a banana republic 4 years on,dont blame anyone but your racist selves.Other countries are coming up diplomatically and technologically and you are just wasting time “looking at colors of the skin”.Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of a once great country.We shall see.
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 5:36 am ¶
Mama73 wrote:
The real no-win situation is for the voters.
Yes, McCain is reckless. And I have no doubt he doesn’t understand one ounce of this financial mess. YES, he had to go back to Washington, and YES he may have to be there for this gunk to get settled…but…couldn’t he take time off for the debates? Phone in or something? Sheesh.
But Obama is a rough and tumble Chicago Poll, who is taking Chicago politics national by setting up “Truth Squads” to tackle people who oppose him. He is truly Orwellian, and scares the beejessus out of me.
http://www.kmov.com/video/index.html?nvid=285793&shu=1
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 7:01 am ¶
miriam wrote:
Yes I agree with Walter redd, close your eyes to the color of skin vote for the candidate worthy of this high office not the pair from the circus, imagine the irresponsibility of McCain to chose Palin for VP seeing Russia from Alaska my foot. This is like a nightmare and us in the rest of the world think could people be so foolish to vote for this pair…..only in America!
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 7:10 am ¶
Sundance Kidd wrote:
Last night I saw Keith Oberman and Rachel Maddow (she is great, btw) seriously discuss McCain dropping Palin from the Republican ticket in order to again stir up things. It’s just another way he can change the focus of all the crazy things he continues to do in this campaign. While unlikely, it was an eye-opening possibility.
McCain/Palin = Unstable/Unable
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 7:22 am ¶
tom wrote:
“we could also face four years of a tax and spend White House and Congress”
as opposed to the last 8 years of a don’t-tax-and-spend-anyway white house and congress that dug us deeper into the hole than we have ever been?
you know what, i want to stab anyone who ever says “tax and spend”. fuck off.
Posted 26 Sep 2008 at 5:14 pm ¶