More about Sen. McCain and his response to Black Bluesday. David S. Bernstein, over at the Phoenix, points out that Sen. McCain has been Walking Backward in this crisis. His point is a little different than the one I’m going to make, but he begins by pointing out that in a crisis, and this seems an awful lot like a crisis to a lot of people, we judge leaders "not necessarily based on their policies or advice, but on their confidence with the issue, their phrasing, even their body language."
He doesn’t toss in Mark Schmitt’s becoming-famous line, so I will: It’s not what the candidates say about the issues, it’s what the issues say about the candidates. Or, to the point, it’s not what the candidates say about the crisis, it’s what the crisis says about the candidates.
Up until two days ago, not only did John McCain insist that the "fundamentals" of the economy (vaddevah dat means) are sound, but that regulation of the financial industry was bad. He talks to Phil Gramm, which no-one with an ounce of sense, taste, or understanding of the economy would do. He has a track record of being the banker’s buddy. None of that changed over the summer, as the credit was drying up. None of that changed as people who know things about the economy were warning about AIG for the last month.
But after the Dow loses five hundred victory points, after Lehmann Brothers declares itself bankrupt and worthless, and after AIG declares that it must have left 80 B-B-B-Billion dollars in its other pants and if you could just spot it until dinner time, its man will go and look for it and send it around in the evening, and after it becomes a crisis, what does the man do? He turns his back on the policies he has professed to believe in, and starts babbling about reining in short sellers and putting a stop to golden parachutes and upholding the social contract.
In other words, John McCain, in a crisis, bailed. He grabbed for something shiny and popular instead of standing up for his principles.
This is not lying, you understand, unless he really doesn’t mean to implement any of the policies he’s talking about, and (if you remember) Your Humble Blogger is adamant that we should take seriously what candidates for office say they will do and hold them to it. No, he’s been lying all summer about his history and the histories of his associates, just flat-out factual lies, but this is not lying. This is caving. This is crumbling. This is pathetic.
The ship of state is headed for the rocks. We all know that. We’ve had a captain for eight years that has been using the wrong map, and has been holding the wrong map upside-down anyway. He won’t listen to anyone who tells him that we’re headed for the rocks, because he started going north-northwest, damnit, and to turn the wheel would be to admit that he was wrong from the beginning, even as the barrels run dry of water and the sails tatter on the masts. So yes, we want a captain that can turn the ship. But for the love of all that’s on her, let’s give the wheel to someone who has something like a pole star of principle to sail her by.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.