McCain on U.S. economy: From 'strong' to 'total crisis' in 36 hours

[seafan]

McCain on U.S. economy: From 'strong' to 'total crisis' in 36 hours

By Michael Cooper
September 17, 2008

On Monday morning, as Wall Street was absorbing one of the biggest shocks to the financial system in generations, Senator John McCain said he believed the fundamentals of the U.S. economy were "strong."
Hours later he backpedaled, explaining that he meant that American workers, the backbone of the economy, were productive and resilient. By Tuesday he was calling the economic situation "a total crisis" and decrying "greed" in Wall Street and Washington.
McCain's sharp turnabout in tone and substance reflected not only a recognition that he had struck a discordant note at a sensitive moment, but that he had done so on the very issue on which he can least afford to stumble.

As economic conditions have worsened over the course of this year and voter anxiety has increased, McCain has had to work to counter the impression - fostered by his own admissions as recently as last year that the economy is not his strongest suit - that he lacks the experience and understanding to address the nation's economic woes. ..... For much of this year, McCain has seemed to struggle to strike a balance between conveying the optimism that many voters seem to want in their leaders, and the I-feel-your-pain empathy that they crave during hard times. His task is complicated by the tension between his plans to continue many of the economic policies of the unpopular incumbent Republican president and his pledges to improve the American economy and shake things up in Washington.

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As recently as this January, McCain argued at a Republican debate that Americans were better off now than they were eight years ago; by this summer he had released an ad that said "we're worse off than we were four years ago."
McCain's first big speech on the mortgage crisis warned against excessive government intervention; a month later he released his plan for government action to help people keep their homes. And a tour he began in July to emphasize his understanding of the economic pain Americans feel was overshadowed when one of his top economic advisers, former Senator Phil Gramm of Texas, was quoted as saying that the United States was only in a "mental recession" and had become "a nation of whiners."

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His statement about the strength of the fundamentals of the economy was one he has made many times, for nearly a year now, usually adding that times are tough or people are hurting. But his reiteration of the remark on Monday, after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers helped send the stock market plunging to its steepest lost since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, quickly became a political problem.

The McCain campaign then swung into action, to try to put the remark "in context," as one top aide said, and to brush back what they felt were unfair attacks coming from the Obama campaign.
On Tuesday morning, McCain was interviewed for CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC. Again and again, he explained that he understood the "crisis" and called for a new commission to study the problem, modeled on the one that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

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"The excess, the greed and the corruption of Wall Street have caused us to have a situation which is going to affect every American. We are in a total crisis."

Will someone come and remove this man and his greedy, corrupt, thieving GOP from our government and our collective psyche? Because of this band of charlatans, thieves, theocrats and warmongers, we are in total crisis.