Steve Huntley, Chicago Sun Times columnist, bangs out a great evaluation of John McCain's Leadership during the Fannie Mae/Mac meltdown and DNC clown opera. While Obama does what he has done all of his career - wait, test the waters, get what he can and when pushed Vote Present - John McCain leads from the front. MSNBC is tripping over its agenda to clear the brush and right Obama's path - which he couldn't find without the Scout Masters holding his hand. John McCain knows the jungle and is out in front with a machete. By Columbus Day Obama will bedown in the polls by double digits.
Read Steve Huntley!
The bottom line: McCain was right last week when he said the rescue plan was on course for failure. Had Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi paid more attention to McCain's warning, heeded his call for a greater bipartisan spirit and acted on that advice instead of accusing him of political grandstanding, the headlines in today's paper might have been different. At the last minute it was Pelosi, not McCain, who waved the partisan red flag in a speech prior to Monday's vote. That likely doomed the Paulson plan by alienating the GOP ballots Pelosi needed to pass the bill since she didn't have enough Democratic votes lined up.
McCain's astute sizing up of the situation in Washington was just the latest example of a politician not known for expertise in economic matters proven to be right at key times on fiscal issues.
Just a week ago he came in for withering criticism from the Wall Street Journal and country club Republicans for suggesting that Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox should be fired because of the Wall Street meltdown. Now we learn from the SEC's inspector general that in 2006 the SEC staff "identified precisely the types of risks that evolved into the subprime crisis" but the agency failed to rein in the aggressive subprime investment practices of Bear Sterns, the first casualty in the meltdown. McCain, it turns out, was right to tag the SEC for failure to do its job.
McCain also proved prescient two years ago when he co-sponsored a bill to tighten regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They are the quasi-government mortgage underwriters at the epicenter of the financial crisis. Obama was silent on the issue.
Despite the stereotype presented about McCain, over the years he has demonstrated wisdom on economic issues.
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