It’s getting harder and harder to tell the Democratic presidential candidate from the Republican one. If you’re not looking at them, that is. Just listening to them talk, or reading about their proposals, you’d swear they either switched sides, or sides don’t matter anymore.
Last night, though the “we’re smarter than you” pundits near and far scored the debate for Obama, saying since McCain didn’t deliver a knockout, Obie wins on points, in the light of day, it looks like McCain may have knocked them all silly at the opening bell. In answer to the first question presented to him, McCain said this:
You know that home values of retirees continues to decline and people are no longer able to afford their mortgage payments. As president of the United States, Alan, I would order the secretary of the treasury to immediately buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America and renegotiate at the new value of those homes — at the diminished value of those homes and let people be able to make those — be able to make those payments and stay in their homes.
Now, the first I heard of this plan was from Hillary Clinton, but nobody paid attention to her. Last night, immediately after the debate, Obi-WanNaBePresident seemed to take credit, at least according to a press release published by Politico:
The statement, “John McCain Lies Tonight,” began: “McCain today said he had a new plan to allow the Treasury to purchase and restructure mortgages. The truth is that this is not a new proposal and is already part of the rescue plan that was signed into law. It was Obama, not McCain who called for this move two weeks ago.”
But today, Camp O is singing a different Dixie; from AP:
The plan would cause the government “to massively overpay for mortgages in a plan that would guarantee taxpayers lose money, and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don’t recover,” Obama economic adviser Jason Furman said in a statement. “The biggest beneficiaries of this plan will be the same financial institutions that got us into this mess, some of whom even committed fraud.”
Michelle Malkin calls McCain’s “plan” ACORN-like:
I can’t underscore enough what a rotten idea John McCain’s ACORN-like government mortgage buy-up is. I said it during my liveblog. And I’ll say it again: “HE WANTS TO EXPAND THE BAILOUT. He wants to do what ACORN wants to do. We’re Screwed ‘08.”
And, even though Obama slammed McCain just last night for saying the fundamentals of the economy are strong, today the O-man said:
“America still has the most talented, most productive workers of any country on Earth,” Obama said. “We’re still the home to innovation and technology, colleges and universities that are the envy of the world. Some of the biggest ideas in history have come from our small businesses and our research facilities.”
Having trouble keeping “who’s who” straight? Well, let me tell you, whatever you do, don’t call the black one “Hussein.” I know it’s his name, but it seems to really piss his friends off.
Throwing your running mate under the bus is okay, though.
That’s how in banking it works. Everybody goes to Delaware, because they’ve got very — pretty loose laws when it comes to things like credit cards.
I don’t have a problem with a balanced plan that will help all Americans. But what bothers me is that during the 90s when defense spending went belly up and I lost my job, I still made my house payments, and my house was upside down. Some people filed bankruptcy. i didn’t. Nobody ever helped me; I had to work two jobs. Now some people that can’t take responsibility for bad decisions they made are benefiting from their mistakes. They’re profiting just because someone wants to buy their vote. And on top of it we’re paying for corporate executive’s vacations. It’s not fair – the middle class gets burned again.