Monday, 29th September, 2008
Thank You, John McCain
John McCain finally did it. He has done something so completely unbelievable and sickening that I am forced out of blogging retirement to comment on it. I am of course referring to McCain and fellow Republicans' accusations that Barack Obama and fellow Democrats are to blame for the failure of the bailout bill today.
Now let me start by saying I have mixed opinions on the bailout bill. On the one hand, there is something unsettling about injecting $700 billion of new money (since we all know Bush has left us with the largest deficit in American history) into the economy and asking taxpayers to pay for it. In the short term, this will end up devaluing the dollar even more, as well as putting additional strain on the wallets of an already overburdened middle class. On the other hand, we are in one of the largest financial crises in our entire history, so a large part of me says that we need to do something to help curb the bleeding and bring some stability back into the markets for both the short term and long term. Ultimately, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but in my opinion to do nothing would be the worst mistake we could make right now.
However, for Republicans to blame Democrats for the failure of this bill is completely outrageous. Let's get the facts straight here. 140 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, while 95 voted against. 65 Republicans voted in favor of the bill, while 133 voted against. So that's almost 60% of House Democrats voting in favor of the bill, compared to only 33% of House Republicans. And this was after both House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader John Boehner both expressed support for the bill late Sunday night after a long weekend of bipartisan work. Now I'm not going to say that Republicans are to blame for the defeat of the bill, but to blame the Democrats is just plain wrong.
In addition, for McCain to blame Obama is simply mind-boggling and disgraceful. "Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain and refused to even say if he supported the final bill. ... This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country," a McCain senior policy adviser said. Maybe I was watching a different debate, but neither one of the candidates endorsed the bill Friday night. In fact, they both said they hoped they could vote for it. And interestingly enough, McCain only agreed to the debate at the last minute because he felt considerable progress had been made on the bill. I guess maybe it wasn't enough progress after all...
So Obama is urging people to be patient and not to panic, to let lawmakers do their job and continue to work on a bill, so that the markets don't crash as a result of public panic. Meanwhile, McCain is pointing fingers at Obama and blaming him for the failure of the bill. It reminds me of that line from An American President: "We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it." Right now, the only thing I see McCain doing throughout his entire campaign is throwing blame around. That is not what leadership is.
But honestly I don't know why this should surprise me. The McCain camp has stooped to all sorts of political lows with their outrageous claims and utter lies all throughout this campaign. I especially loved when one of his campaign correspondents told CNN after the debate Friday night that Obama plans to raise taxes for the majority of Americans, which unless the majority of Americans make more than $250k a year is a blatant lie. Or when McCain himself claimed that Obama voted to raise taxes for people making $42k a year twice this year. In fact, he voted for Senate budget priorities through 2013 that assume the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 will expire during that time, which they will unless altered by further legislation. In other words, McCain's claims are extremely misleading and dishonest.
So really this shouldn't come as any surprise. Time and time again we have seen McCain throw blame around, claim Obama doesn't know anything, and then try to back it all up with lies and deceit. I honestly respected John McCain before this year, but he has shown himself to be just another politician who only cares about getting elected. Frankly, I'm tired of that attitude, and thankfully I know there are millions of other Americans that are as well. I'd love to see him put aside all the bullshit partisanship for just a moment and have a real debate with Obama, one that talks about the issues but does so in a respectful and constructive manner. But then again, I wouldn't expect McCain to know how to carry on such a debate.
Oh and by the way, what the heck does the height of North Koreans vs. South Koreans have to do with anything?!