Gunner wrote:
On Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:43:45 -0500, Ignoramus11155
wrote:

On 2008-09-18, Ed Huntress wrote:
Sorry for starting a new political OT thread, but this one has had
me rolling on the floor all morning and I had to let it out.

The press is remarking today about the four-hour transition of John
McCain from an anti-regulation hawk to his new position calling for
tight federal regulation of the finance industry and an end to its
"greed." ("We're going to put an end to the abuses on Wall Street!
Enough is enough! We're going to put an end to the greed!") That
was the setup.

Due to very untimely financial and economic meltdown, McCain campaign
now is in full panic mode. The novelty of Sarah Palin is wearing off
and people are now concentrating on the bad economic news. It cannot
be good for his faltering campaign.

McCain is desperate to find his own theme, throwing away his long
held "principles", when these "principles" do not advance his
campaign.


i


Odd..I dont see any evidence of this. Could you please provide some
cites?


September 18, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
The McCain of the Week
By GAIL COLLINS
VIENNA, Ohio

"The people of Ohio are the most productive in the world!" yelled John
McCain at a rally outside of Youngstown on Tuesday. Present company perhaps
excluded, since the crowd was made up entirely of people who were at liberty
in the middle of a workday.

Folks were wildly enthusiastic as the event began. That was partly because
Sarah Palin was also on the bill. (With Todd!) And when McCain took the
center stage, they were itching to cheer the war hero and boo all references
to pork-barrel spenders.

Nobody had warned them that he had just morphed into a new persona - a
raging populist demanding more regulation of the nation's financial system.
And since McCain's willingness to make speeches that have nothing to do with
his actual beliefs is not matched by an ability to give them, he wound up
sounding like Bob Dole impersonating Huey Long.

Really, if McCain is going to keep changing into new people, the campaign
should send out notices. (Come to a rally for the next president of the
United States. Today he's a vegetarian!)

"We're going to put an end to the abuses on Wall Street - enough is enough!"
this new incarnation yelled, complaining angrily about greed and overpaid
C.E.O.'s. Slowly, people begin to peel out of the crowd and drift away. Even
in these troubled times, there are apparently a number of Republicans who
think highly of corporate executives and captains of high finance.

The whole transformation was fascinating in a cheap-thrills kind of way. It'
s not every day, outside of "Incredible Hulk" movies, that you see somebody
make this kind of turnaround in the scope of a few hours.

On Monday in Jacksonville, Fla., McCain made his now-famous reassurance that
the fundamentals of the economy were still good. It's a longstanding line of
his, but this was perhaps not the best week to dredge it up. So the handlers
went to work, and by the time McCain arrived in Orlando a few hours later he
was reprogrammed. And angry!

"We're going to put an end to the abuses on Wall Street! Enough is enough!
We're going to put an end to the greed!" he told a town hall meeting crowded
with Hispanic Republicans. It was a rather jumbled message, but the new
story line was firm. The fundamentals were not things like employment rates
or trade statistics. The fundamentals were the workers.

We are the fundamentals!

And, naturally, the humble, hard-working fundamentals are good. Who could
doubt it? Was Barack Obama trying to say that he didn't think the American
working man and woman was good? Was this the sort of thing they talked about
at those fancy-schmancy Hollywood fund-raisers? Which, of course, John
McCain hates. Give him some hard cider and a log cabin, and he's happy as a
clam.

But wait! The fundamentals are in danger! At risk because of "greed." Which
John McCain was shocked to discover has been running rampant in the canyons
of Wall Street.

Now in an election like this, you expect a certain amount of tactical
reimagining. McCain used to like reporters, and now he treats them as if
they were carrying the Ebola virus. Fair enough, although given the fact
that he's terrible at speeches, and the famous town halls have now become
Republican-only lovefests, the campaign really should invent some new method
of communication. (And remember, the man doesn't text.)

It is also disconcerting, of course, to hear the Republicans rail against
Washington as if the Socialist Workers Party had been running things there
for the last eight years. But really, what would you do if you were McCain?
There aren't a lot of options, and he never did like George W. anyway.

This new tactic is different. McCain has always, genuinely, believed in
dismantling government regulations, and there he was, vowing to create new
"comprehensive regulations that will apply the rules and enforce them to the
fullest." It makes you think that he's trying to impersonate something he's
not. Or wasn't. Or might not be. The image is getting fuzzy.

This week, while McCain's chief economic adviser was telling reporters that
it was wrong to "run for president by denigrating everything in sight and
trying to scare people," McCain's ad people were unveiling a new spot
announcing "Our economy in crisis!" and calling for "tougher rules on Wall
Street" along, of course, with more offshore drilling. Mournful
unemployment-line music swells.

I have absolutely no idea of how John McCain would handle a financial crisis
if he were president. But on behalf of all the nation's fundamentals I would
like to say that he now has me ready to stage a run on the first bank in
sight

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/op...ollins.html?hp


--

John R. Carroll
www.machiningsolution.com