McCain feels he was misled by the Bush economic team during the campaign

[sabra]

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204619004574320620620327870-lMyQjAxMDA5MDAwMTEwNDEyWj.html#printMode

<snip>

Mr. McCain is initially reluctant to talk about the campaign, but he provides me with snippets of what went right and wrong. He believes that he could have won the election had it not been for the market collapse in mid-September. “We were three points up on September 14. The next day the market lost 700 points and $1.2 trillion in wealth vanished, and by the end of the day we were seven points down. We lost the white college graduate voters, who became profoundly disillusioned with Republicans. And by the way, that was the way it ended up. We lost by seven points.”

He certainly was dealt a lousy hand. But I challenge him on whether he might have played that hand better. During the first days of the financial crisis, Mr. McCain looked indecisive and worse, a creature of Washington insider politics. Why did he suspend his campaign, and why did he vote for the $700 billion bank bailout plan, which was wildly unpopular with voters?

“You have no idea the pressure I was under,” he says. “I remember being on the phone with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, the Treasury secretary and Bernanke. They assure me the world financial system is going to collapse if I don’t vote for the bill. So I do the impetuous and rash thing by saying, look, I have got to go back to Washington and see how I can help. And by the way, so did Obama—but it was McCain that was the impetuous one. Obama came back to Washington.” Mr. McCain grumbles, “He was at the White House with me. But he wasn’t impetuous.” This is the only time in our interview he shows any bitterness about the campaign.

He feels he was misled by the Bush economic team. He wanted the focus of the rescue plan to be on housing and home owners under water—not the lenders or the big banks. “Paulson and Bernanke both told me on the phone, our primary focus is going to be on the housing crisis. That’s our primary focus. And then three days later they switched their whole priorities around.” Instead, the Bush administration got a $700 billion check from Congress to save banks, investment houses and eventually car companies.

Had he been president, Mr. McCain says he would have done things differently. “Small business has been ignored in this whole bailout. You know, I hate to use the word but it seems to me that the philosophy of Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke is trickle down, you know? Save Wall Street, save these financial institutions and then maybe they’ll have enough money to loan to the small business person. Wall Street seems to be doing okay. The executive salaries are fine.”

[tekisui]

1. Join the club.

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Psst. John, the Bush administration flat out lied about a whole lot of things and the rest of us

knew it.

[Mariana]

6. Don't imagine that McCain didn't know Bush

and his cronies were liars. He knew. But he was stupid enough to suppose that they wouldnt' lie to HIM. Oops.

[joeybee12]

3. Misled? I think what he means is he isn't smart enough to understand the economy...

...and took what he was told at face value.

[Mariana]

7. "The fundamentals of our economy are strong" - John McCain

I'll say he wasn't smart enough to understand the economy.

[gratuitous]

8. Said that on the very day the Dow fell off the table

Made him look exactly like the clueless cookie he is. But if it pleases John Sidney McCain III to say so, let him think that it was all the Bush team's fault that they couldn't keep that punctured balloon from deflating. They were pumping as hard and as fast as they could, but the overheating was just too much for even the Bushistas to sustain any longer.

[zbdent]

17. McCain was quoted as saying that he didn't really understand

economics ...

I can see that ... since his daddy was an admiral (job security), enjoyed publicly funded health care all his life (ironically, the only time he was denied health care was in a socialist state, until he denounced America - admitted to that, too ... to get health care!) ... ditched his wife (who had stayed with him while he was a POW and loved him despite all his physical problems after he returned) for an heiress ...

yeah, he knew what it was like to work to make sure that he could feed his family and have affordable health care! :sarcasm:

[Flying Dream Blues]

4. I think the impetuous part might have been about suspending his campaign?

in order to rush back to Washington to save the day. How soon we forget! And what a preview to his style of leadership: a do-nothing drama queen who then takes credit for anything perceived as good.

[NNN0LHI]

5. I guess Bush using racial epitaphs against McCain's daughter didn't teach him anything?

[City Lights]

9. Oh puhleeze.

As Dubya himself said, There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

How many times must you be fooled by Dubya and Dick before you learn that they lie about everything? :eyes:

[DCKit]

10. Dubya* was a bad, bad man. Mean of Dubya*, doing that to the elderly.

Then again, the concept of "vetting" (whether people or information) seems to have escaped the McCain camp entirely - See: Sarah Palin.

[blondeatlast]

11. B-b-but, wasn't he a "maverick?" His own man? Why was he listening to them? nt

[Horse with no Name]

12. If only they could have sunk Social Security into the stock market

it would have bought the time you needed John.
Sorry for that.:rofl:
No, really I am. :rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

13. Nice of him to admit that he really isn't up to the job.

[onethatcares]

14. Hell, I was mislead by the bush misadministration about everything

they ever mentioned.

I couldn't picture mccain and palin doing anything other than following the same path.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. Why didn't McCain excoriate Bush publicly then? Why wait till now?

I agree with McCain's statement when he says "it seems to me that the philosophy of Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke is trickle down, you know?" I agree with him when he says that the primary focus of the bail-out became the protection of CEO salaries and bonuses and not the homeowner or small business owner.

If McCain felt he was betrayed by Bush, why didn't he make his feelings known? Instead, Bush was completely eliminated as a topic of conversation by the McCain campaign.

[maxrandb]

16. So he admits that "Trickle Down" economics

and giving large breaks to the wealthiest Americans in the hopes that they will stimulate the economy is a "dumb-ass idea"???

:wtf:

[damntexdem]

18. How could he have been misled? He was doing to stop his campaign and study up on it all.

;-)