yawn zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz On Sep 29, 4:38 am, "mike532 [ Republicans for Obama ]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > McCain's Suspension Bridge to Nowherehttp://www.truthout.org/092808Y > What we learned last week is that the man who always puts his 'country > first' will take the country down with him if that's what it takes to > get to the White House. > > When John McCain gratuitously parachuted into Washington on > Thursday, he didn't care if his grandstanding might precipitate an > even deeper economic collapse. All he cared about was whether he might > save his campaign. George Bush put more deliberation into invading > Iraq than McCain did into his own reckless invasion of the delicate > Congressional negotiations on the bailout plan. > > By the time he arrived, there already was a bipartisan agreement > in principle. It collapsed hours later at the meeting convened by the > president in the Cabinet Room. Rather than help try to resuscitate > Wall Street's bloodied bulls, McCain was determined to be the bull in > Washington's legislative china shop, running around town and playing > both sides of his divided party against Congress's middle. Once others > eventually forged a path out of the wreckage, he'd inflate, if not > outright fictionalize, his own role in cleaning up the mess his > mischief helped make. Or so he hoped, until his ignominious retreat. > > The question is why would a man who forever advertises his own > honor toy so selfishly with our national interest at a time of crisis. > I'll leave any physiological explanations to gerontologists - if they > can get hold of his complete medical records - and any armchair > psychoanalysis to the sundry McCain press acolytes who have > sorrowfully tried to rationalize his erratic behavior this year. The > other answers, all putting politics first, can be found by examining > the 24 hours before he decided to 'suspend' campaigning and swoop down > on the Capitol to save America from the Sunnis or the Shia, or whoever > perpetrated all those credit-default swaps. > > To put these 24 hours in context, you must remember that McCain > not only knows little about the economy but that he has not previously > expressed any urgency about its meltdown. It was on Sept. 15 - the day > after his former idol Alan Greenspan pronounced the current crisis a > 'once-in-a-century' catastrophe - that McCain reaffirmed for the > umpteenth time that the 'fundamentals of our economy are strong.' As > recently as Tuesday he had not yet even read the two-and-a-half-page > bailout proposal first circulated by Hank Paulson last weekend. 'I > have not had a chance to see it in writing,' he explained. (Maybe he > was waiting for it to arrive by Western Union instead of PDF.) > > Then came Black Wednesday - not for the stock market, which was > holding steady in anticipation of Washington action, but for McCain. > As the widely accepted narrative has it, his come-to-Jesus moment > arrived that morning, when he awoke to discover that Barack Obama had > surged ahead by nine percentage points in the Washington Post/ABC News > poll. The McCain campaign hastily suited up its own pollster to > belittle that finding - only to be drowned out by a fusillade of new > polls from Fox News, Marist and CNN/Time, each with numbers closer to > Post/ABC than not. Obama was rising most everywhere except the moose > strongholds of Alaska and Montana. > > That was not the only bad news raining down on McCain. His camp > knew what Katie Couric had in the can from her interview with Sarah > Palin. The first excerpt was to be broadcast by CBS that night, and it > had to be upstaged fast. > > But even that wasn't the top political threat McCain faced last > week. Bigger still was the mounting evidence of the seamless synergy > between his campaign and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage > monsters at the heart of the housing bust that set off our current > calamity. Most of all, it was the fast-moving events on that front > that precipitated his panic to roll out his diversionary, over-the-top > theatrics on Wednesday. > > What we were learning - through The New York Times, Newsweek and > Roll Call - was ugly. Davis Manafort, the lobbying firm owned by > McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, had received $15,000 a month > from Freddie Mac from late 2005 until last month. This was in addition > to the $30,000 a month that Davis was paid from 2000 to 2005 by the so- > called Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy organization that he headed > and that was financed by Freddie and Fannie to fight regulation. > > The McCain campaign tried to pre-emptively deflect such > revelations by reviving the old Rove trick of accusing your opponent > of your own biggest failings. It ran attack ads about Obama's own > links to the mortgage giants. But neither of the former Freddie-Fannie > executives vilified in those ads, Franklin Raines and James Johnson, > had worked at those companies lately or are currently associated with > the Obama campaign. (Raines never worked for the campaign at all.) By > contrast, Davis is the tip of the Freddie-Fannie-McCain iceberg. > McCain's senior adviser, his campaign's vice chairman, his > Congressional liaison and the reported head of his White House > transition team all either made fortunes from recent Freddie-Fannie > lobbying or were players in firms that did. > > By Wednesday, the McCain campaign's latest tactic for countering > this news - attacking the press, especially The Times - was paying > diminishing returns. Davis abruptly canceled his scheduled appearance > that day at a weekly reporters' lunch sponsored by The Christian > Science Monitor, escaping any further questions by pleading that he > had to hit the campaign trail. (He turned up at the '21' Club in New > York that night, wining and dining McCain fund-raisers.) > > It's then that Angry Old Ironsides McCain suddenly emerged to bark > that our financial distress was 'the greatest crisis we've faced, > clearly, since World War II' - even greater than the Russia-Georgia > conflict, which in August he had called the 'first probably serious > crisis internationally since the end of the cold war.' Campaigns, > debates and no doubt Bristol Palin's nuptials had to be suspended > immediately so he could ride to the rescue, with Joe Lieberman as his > Robin. > > Yet even as he huffed and puffed about being a 'leader,' McCain > took no action and felt no urgency. As his Congressional colleagues > worked tirelessly in Washington, he malingered in New York. He checked > out the suffering on Main Street (or perhaps High Street) by > conferring with Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, the Hillary-turned- > McCain supporter best known for her fabulous London digs and her > diatribes against Obama's elitism. McCain also found time to have a > well-publicized chat with one of those celebrities he so disdains, > Bono, and to give a self-promoting public speech at the Clinton Global > Initiative. > > There was no suspension of his campaign. His surrogates and ads > remained on television. Huffington Post bloggers, working the phones, > couldn't find a single McCain campaign office that had gone on hiatus. > This 'suspension' ruse was an exact replay of McCain's self-righteous > 'suspension' of the G.O.P. convention as Hurricane Gustav arrived on > Labor Day. 'We will put aside our political hats and put on our > American hats,' he declared then, solemnly pledging that > conventioneers would help those in need. But as anyone in the Twin > Cities could see, the assembled put on their party hats instead, > piling into the lobbyists' bacchanals earlier than scheduled, albeit > on the down-low. > > Much of the press paid lip service to McCain's new 'suspension' as > it had to its prototype. In truth, the only campaign activity McCain > did drop was a Wednesday evening taping with David Letterman. Don't > mess with Dave. Picking up where the 'The View' left off in speaking > truth to power, the uncharacteristically furious host hammered the > absent McCain on and off for 40 minutes, repeatedly observing that the > cancellation 'didn't smell right.' > > In a journalistic coup de grâce worthy of '60 Minutes,' Letterman > went on to unmask his no-show guest as a liar. McCain had phoned > himself that afternoon to say he was 'getting on a plane immediately' > to deal with the grave situation in Washington, Letterman told the > audience. Then he showed video of McCain being touched up by a makeup > artist while awaiting an interview by Couric that same evening at > another CBS studio in New York. > > It's not hard to guess why McCain had blown off Letterman for > Couric at the last minute. The McCain campaign's high anxiety about > the disastrous Couric-Palin sit-down was skyrocketing as advance > excerpts flooded the Internet. By offering his own interview to Couric > for the same night, McCain hoped (in vain) to dilute Palin's primacy > on the 'CBS Evening News.' > > Letterman's most mordant laughs on Wednesday came when he riffed > about McCain's campaign 'suspension': 'Do you suspend your campaign? > No, because that makes me think maybe there will be other things down > the road, like if he's in the White House, he might just suspend being > president. I mean, we've got a guy like that now!' > > That's no joke. Bush has so little credibility he can govern only > through surrogates (Paulson is the new Petraeus). When he spoke about > the economic crisis in prime time earlier that same night, he > registered as no more than an irritating speed bump en route to 'David > Blaine: Dive of Death.' > > It's that utter power vacuum that gave McCain the opening to pull > his potentially catastrophic display of economic 'leadership' last > week. He may be the first presidential candidate in our history to > risk wrecking the country even before being voted into the Oval > Office. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
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