Who’s The Real Reformer Now?
If history teaches us anything it is that McCain, not Obama is a reformer.
For days now Barack Obama told voters he was the one who predicted the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and who was working in the Senate to try to get lawmakers to agree to a plan that would let the federal government regulate the activities of both investment giants. Obama, the narrative sold by the Obama campaign goes, stood at the forefront, he was one of the leaders, on bills that would force the companies and others like it to behave responsible.
There’s just one problem with Obama’s story; it’s fiction. Never did the Democratic nominee lead on this issue, or something related to it. Never did he attempt to hold these companies responsible and to regulate them.
Knowing this full well, John McCain decided to go after Obama. Enough is enough, the McCain campaign must have thought. Time to confront Obama, his supporters and the media in general with the truth.
And so, at a campaign stop in Ohio McCain made clear what he thought of Obama (see below for video). In the city of Vienna McCain told an audience that he and Palin would reform Wall Street, the economy and lead American forward “into the greatest period of its history.”
So far the positive introduction, appeasing those who thought he would lash out.
But then the moment came. “My friends,” McCain said in his usual choice of words, “lets have some straight talk.”
“Senator Obama is not interested in the politics of hope, he’s interested in his political future. And that’s why he’s hurling in insults and making up facts about his record.”
“Today he claimed,” McCain went on to say, “the Congressional stimulage package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote.”
“He talks a tough game on the financial crisis, but the facts tell a different story.”
Then the blow-out came: “Senator Obama took more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than anyone but the chairman of the committee they answered to.”
“And he put Fannie Mae’s CEO – who helped create this problem – in charge of finding his vice president.”
“That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington,” McCain concluded.
But he wasn’t done yet with his Democratic rival. “He talked about siding with the people. Siding with the people… just before he flew off to Hollywood for a fundraiser with Barbara Streisand and his celebrity friends.”
McCain’s line of attack is clear and logical; he’s making clear to voters that Obama is trying to create a record by simply lying about his past words and actions. The man who has no record at all, and who made an expertise out of skipping votes on even remotely important issues, now claims to be a man of hope and change, willing and able to take on Washington and to reform it.
A true reformer, I’d say, would have led on this issue, and would have tried to force Congress to act.
Like, say, John McCain. The Senator from Arizona actually did lead on this issue. Back in 2006 McCain said, in a speech on the Senate floor, that ‘if Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.’
Again, that was in 2006. Two whole years ago, when Obama was doing business with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae executives and lobbyists, McCain was calling on Congress to regulate them. He may be 72 years old, and he may have been a senator for many more years than Obama, but the ‘maverick’ is the one truly willing to take on the ‘establishment.’
Who’s the reformer and agent of change now Mr. Obama?
* The video, as promised.
If Obama is presenting himself as the prophet of this crisis, he’s probably wrong. Then again, John McCain is probably no would-be savior, either, says Politifact.
McCain’s speech was about accounting practices, not subprime mortgages, which is largely what this current crisis is about.
Michael;
Agreed with above but doesn’t it at the least say "this public-private enterprise called Fannie Mae is fraught with problems that we need to fix!" Isn’t that raising the concern I’ve now so much lately that private industry gets the profits and the public gets the loses. That seems like the sort of issue that just begs for the "new way". Where was Sen. Obama on this issue in 2006?
I think the point about raising concerns about bad accounting practices was that there was a layer of opacity that was making it impossible to provide proper oversight and assess the health of those companies. That doesn’t mean that the accounting itself was the extent of the problem- it means that the accounting was a sleight of hand that needed to be fixed before anyone could know what else needed to be done.
Michael, could it not be that these “accounting practices” actually pertained to the very subprime mortgage derivatives they were supposed to value