McCain's Untethered Flailing Continues

John McCain's week of flailing on the economic crisis has -- like his pick of Sarah Palin -- demonstrated that he is untethered and lacking in temperament to be our nation's leader. His latest gambit, his attempt to avoid the marketplace of ideas in Friday's debate, demonstrates he has no ideas to offer.

Seeing the election slipping away from him four weeks ago, he effectively disqualified himself by naming Governor Palin as his vice-presidential nominee, after meeting with her for an hour. It is difficult to imagine an act more irresponsible, more craven, more selfish, or more impulsive. Over the past week, he has removed all doubt about his character. He has been even more irresponsible, more craven, more selfish, and more impulsive. He began by declaring that there was no crisis, that the fundamentals of our economy were sound. Within hours, he claimed he was misunderstood. There was a crisis, but American workers were sound. Then, there was the crisis, and it was because there was not enough regulation, even though he was against regulation. Then, there was a crisis, and Senator Obama lacked the experience in Washington to deal with it. Then, there was a crisis, and it was all Obama's fault, because of his experience in Washington. Each day, as he flailed about, Obama showed cool in crisis, and offered up specifics on what must be included in a plan. McCain slipped in the polls.

So now it is Wednesday of the next week. The Administration's answer to the crisis is to declare that a conflagration is imminent, and that the only solution is to give them unbridled authority and a blank check to avert it. Sound familiar? In the fall of 2003, we heard that a conflagration was imminent (Saddam had plywood drones ready to attack the Eastern Seaboard with WMD's), and the only solution was to give the Bush Administration unbridled authority and a blank check to avert it. Barack Obama was a lonely voice saying this was nonsense. Everything that he predicted would happen in Iraq -- the empowerment of terrorists previously absent from the region, the failure to focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the utter waste of blood and treasure -- has occurred. This week, even Republicans like Virginia's Tom Davis were resisting the Administration's latest "wolf at the door argument" and Congress was actually moving toward some program that might make sense. (Maybe there is a program other than a bailout that makes sense - like a line of credit for third parties to buy the paper rather than the government buying the paper? We'll save that for another post.)

So what was John McCain to do? Too flat-footed to react, the election again slipping away, he overreaches for a Palin-type game-changer. Again. There is a crisis, he tells us. The crisis is so bad, we can't debate. We have to go to Washington and fix it. Never mind Hank Paulson and the Banking Committees have been going at it for days. Never mind that neither he nor George W. Bush have the foggiest idea what to do. The two of them will sit down with Obama and work it out.

In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote that "the best test of truth is the power of thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market". Senator McCain, if your ideas are different than those of President Bush, Secretary Paulson, or if they are different than those of Barack Obama, I suggest you offer them up Friday night, in a debate, in the marketplace of ideas. I sense you have nothing to sell.

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

Yep, and the bottom line to all of this is that neither of these hand-picked so-called-candidates are in the slightest way "fit to rule."

They represent an establishment that situated itself in power in the late 1950's, and "Ike" Eisenhower tried hard at that time to warn us. They fell in love with war itself, and with the vast amounts of borrowed cash that stem from it. They told us to shove our kids under our desks and to tell them to kiss their asses goodbye, and we dutifully did it because we trusted Government (hey, hadn't they just won World War II?) and didn't know any better, and they laughed.

In the 50-odd years that followed, these people quietly showed themselves to be sociopaths. And "they had Nukes." How many? So many. Way TOO many, but at a couple dozen million bucks a pop...

Rest of the world, though, OUTGREW World War II, tore down the damned wall, and began to stare down in their own way the last hangout of the neo-neuro-Bolsheviks: The Washington Beltway.

They won't take our worthless currency anymore. (Would YOU?) They're not afraid of our nukes. And they won't give us GPS-coordinates. Oh my, what to do, what to do...

[lvdragonlady]

First off, a president DOES NOT RULE - he governs
So you are wrong right off the top.
Only one candidate loves war.
I do agree with the neanderthal mentality of some in DC but not all.
GWB has made our currency worthless because instead of fixing what was wrong, he just say to print more money but he is not the only one, Nixon, Reagan and others did the same thing.
print print print
Before this happened we had to have the gold be back what was printed now it is backed by a whole lot of nothing....

Bring the gold standard back.
Bring jobs back to Americans
NO MORE outsourcing...........
NO MORE tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas.

[K.J. Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

Alan,

Once again, great analysis. You're the first that I've read to make the comparison to the Iraq war resolution with regards to the current Wall Street Bailout. It IS the exact same strategy. Both times, the executive demanded unbridled power to address the "crisis."

This "power grab" really concerns me, especially as relates to the Bush/Paulson proposal. Everyone has been writing about "Section 8." of the proposal, but few are addressing the implications of this naked attempt to concentrate power in the executive (attempting to exclude both the legislature and the judiciary).

That the Bush administration would even suggest that there should be no oversight or review of Treasury's distribution of the 700 billion is pure -- and I'm going to use a very strong word here -- fascism. I'm using that word because the American Heritage Dictionary agrees with me. (The following parantheticals are mine).

"A system of government marked by centralization of authority (Treasury) under a dictator (Paulson), stringent socioeconomic controls (no review) [and] suppression of the opposition (no Congressional or Judicial oversight) . . .” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascism

I know that Paulson has since back-pedaled on the oversight issue, but the fact remains that passage of their proposal with Section 8 intact was their "dream scenario." I don't know how much more explicit the Bush administration has to be in exposing their true intentions.

[Alan Fein - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the kind words, KJ. My wife is a playwright, by the way, and we run a theater company here in Miami called City Theatre. We produce a festival of short plays every summer called Summer Shorts, which performs at our new Performing Arts Center. We have good friends who moved to B.A. a couple of years ago named Rob and Lisa Franklin. I want to get doen there and visit them.

[cgr]

One thing in all this mayhem is for absolute sure: as January draws to a close, there will, WILL, be a new president in the White House. This, to me is singular evidence of the value of our form of government, that someone like Bush doesn't get to stay there more than eight years, and doesn't get to go if we don't choose him.

One way or another, the other thing for absolute sure is that on Nov. 4th we're going to pick the team that will go to the White House in Jan. and govern the most powerful nation on earth, our country. McCain can delay and distract, obfuscate and put off all he likes, but Nov. 4 will approach just the same. If he can't settle on who he is, and insists on having his running mate the unknown surprise behind door # 2, then only the dimmest of voters could possibly choose to hand the future of the country to him. If he shows increasing signs of mental fog and possible physical changes, with his history, and won't release his medical records, then he too is the unknown surprise behind door #1.

Who could responsibly vote for two unknown quantities in these perilous times? Or any other time, for that matter.

[Sundialsvc4]

Chuckle... "you're going to get to pick," are you?

Well, as a matter of fact, you're not.

At the VERY best, you're going to pick "electors," and they can pick who they dimmed-well-please.

But in an electoral-majority of states, those "votes" will be "counted" by electronic machines that are specifically designed not to produce any paper trail. No chads. No ballots. Just a number in a database and no way to verify it. Can you say, "ballot-box stuffing?" Knew you could.

Here's the best that you can hope for: a determined vote for "neither one." There are more than two candidates on the ballot.

[Lindans]

Every voter should go to www.ourfuture.org "The Keating Five Legacy". It may help in understand the recent developments.