Emphasis mine.
Where is the outrage?
John McCain decries greed on Wall Street and suggests a commission be formed to look into the problem. This is like Casanova coming out for chastity.By Garrison Keillor
Sep. 24, 2008
Confident men took leave of common sense and bet on the idea of perpetual profit in the real estate market and crashed.
But it wasn't their money. It was your money they were messing with. And that's why you need government regulators. Gimlet-eyed men with steel-rim glasses and crepe-soled shoes who check the numbers and have the power to say, "This is a scam and a hustle and either you cease and desist or you spend a few years in a minimum-security federal facility playing backgammon."
The Republican Party used to specialize in gimlet-eyed, steel-rim, crepe-soled common sense and then it was
taken over by crooked preachers who demand we trust them because they're packing a Bible and God sent them on a mission to enact lower taxes, less government. Except when things crash, and then government has to pick up the pieces.Some say the tab might come to a trillion dollars. Nobody knows. And Mr. McCain has not one moment of doubt or regret.
He switches from First Deregulation Church to Our Lady of Strict Vigilance like you might go from decaf to latte. Where is the straight talk? Does the man have no conscience?It wasn't their money they were playing with. It was yours.
Where were the cops?What we are seeing is the stuff of a novel, the public corruption of an American war hero. It is painful. First, there was his exploitation of a symbolic woman, an eager zealot who is so far out of her depth that it isn't funny anymore. Anyone with a heart has to hurt for how Mr. McCain has made a fool of her. Never mind the persistent cheesiness of his attack ads. And now this chasm of debt and loss and the gentleman pretends to be shocked.
He was there. He turned out the lights. He sent the regulators home.Mr. McCain seems willing to say anything, do anything, to get to the White House so he can go to war with Iran. If he needs to recline naked in Macy's window, he would do that, or eat live chickens, or claim to be a reformer. Obviously you can fool a lot of people for awhile and maybe he can stretch it out until mid-November. But the truth is marching on. A few true conservatives are leading a charge against the bailout. Good for them. But how about admitting that their cowboy economic philosophy was at fault here?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2008/09/24/mccain/-- By Garrison Keillor
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
