McCain takes credit for bill before it loses

[Fuzz]

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=AF9F10EC-18FE-70B2-A82949C5A24271A8

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

The rush to claim he had engineered a victory now looks like a strategic blunder that will prolong the McCain’s campaign’s difficulty in finding a winning message on the economy.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Senator Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs-up.

“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.

Wisely, in retrospect, McCain initially had been more modest. On Sunday, he said on ABC’s “This Week” that congressional negotiators deserve “great credit” for the bipartisan deal. “"It wasn’t because of me,” McCain said. “They did it themselves.”

But at almost the same time, McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt was saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “What Senator McCain was able to do … was to help get all of the parties to the table. There had been announcements by Senate leaders saying that a deal had been reached earlier in the week. There were no votes for that deal.

“Senator McCain knew time was short and he came back, he listened and he helped put together the framework of getting everybody to the table, which was necessary to produce a package to avoid a financial catastrophe for this country.”

On Monday morning, McCain campaign communications director Jill Hazelbaker said on Fox News that the deal would not have happened “without Senator McCain.”

“Senator McCain interrupted his campaign, suspended his campaign activity to come back to Washington to get Republicans around a table,” Hazelbaker said. “Without Senator McCain, House Republicans would not have appointed a negotiator, which would not have moved this bill forward.

“It’s really Senator McCain who got all parties around a table to hammer out a deal that hopefully is in the best interests of the American taxpayer.”

After the vote, commentators were harsh. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said: “He’s like a cavalry commander who said ‘Charge!’ and the Republicans went into retreat.”

[gratuitous]

1. Let's be fair, now

McCain also issued a press release hours before his debate with Obama that he'd won convincingly. So it must all be true, because Straight-Talkin' Johnny Maverick wouldn't lie.

McThuselah needs to get a new Magic 8 Ball.

[Supersedeas]

6. you won't hear a word to the contrary from the Kelly O'Donnell Free Ride Media

[grannie4peace]

2. i'm chuckling ... his timing is astounding

[plcdude]

8. expediency time

His timing is bad because he operates on expediency time. He takes a guess as what will be either politically expedient or popular with his base or at least the base he wishes to influence to vote for him and then proceeds hell-bent hoping it will work. He has done it with previous reversals on his maverick positions on immigration, campaign finance, and torture, but also on selecting Palin. If he actually could relate to the conditions of real people in these here United States he might not have to make those guesses. This is the opposite of leadership.

[ann_american2004]

15. hahaha too true

that is one maverick who steps in the sh*t before he can smell it.

[grannie4peace]

21. nailed it!!!!

[Tangerine LaBamba]

3. Putz

Hateful, lying old putz.

Along with his newest BFF, Bill Clinton, he ought to go the hell away and just shut up forever.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. BWAH-HA-HA!!!!!!!!!! That's hillarious!

The only ray of light in this.

[Fridays Child]

5. Has he learned anything or will he step in it, all over again, with the Bristol wedding gimmick?

Exploiting two scared kids to spin a shotgun wedding as a feel-good slice of Americana? Yeah, it's just a great plan, you fucking idiot.

[dixiegrrrrl]

9. Ya know, I did not see his name on the vote....

looked real hard fo r it.
twice.
Nope, wasn't there.

“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,”

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, talk about it.

[Doodler71]

12. Says a lot about who's idea it was... he doesn't even vote for

his fictional ideas.

What a putz.

[CampLo]

23. McCain is a senator

not a House Rep

[Iterate]

7. "...people up on the Hill deserve great credit that conducted these negotiations"

"Frankly, I think that the people up on the Hill deserve great credit that conducted these negotiations," McCain said on ABC's "This Week."

It's like betting on yesterday's games and still getting it wrong.

[metapunditedgy]

10. McCain statement surreal

The McCain campaign has blamed Obama for the defeat of the "bailout bill." In a released statement, the campaign said:

“Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome. This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.”

Now, we also learn from CNBC that "In the end, Republican House members voted against it by a more than 2-to-1 margin. A majority of Democrats voted in favor." In short, while Democrats were generally skeptical, it was a lack of support from Republicans that doomed the bill.

McCain said he was suspending his campaign to help pass the bill. We are left with two choices: either McCain spent most of his time lobbying the Democrats, or he did a lousy job rallying the House members in his own party. The latter seems more likely.

Finally, McCain blames the bill's failure on Obama and Pelosi. But the vote tally shows that the House Republicans were primarily to blame. (Has the McCain campaign even seen the vote tally?) Therefore, McCain would have us believe that House Republicans voted against the bill because of some perceived slight by the Democrats, even though McCain was lobbying for them to accept it. In short, McCain is accusing House Republicans of putting "Ego First" instead of "Country First."

Attribution: http://metapunditedgytheanticlown.blogspot.com/2008/09/surreal-moment-of-day.html

[ann_american2004]

17. heads are spinning up is down and no is yes...

this is just too much...cant...take...the..spinning...spinning...spinning McCain


:rofl:

[Doodler71]

11. Mighty mouse is caught in his own trap

BWAHAHAHAHAHAA

:rofl:

[ddeclue]

13. Hoisted by his own petard!!!

How wonderful!!

This plus Gingrich throwing Bush under the bus today really has been awesome..

Bush OWNED this mess, now McCain does too!

[ThoughtCriminal]

14. How about an Ice Cold Can of...

NEW FAIL!

[kenny blankenship]

16. He's a Maveric all right!

He zigs when other people zag!

You know we could be just seconds from either a fresh suspension of McCain's campaign, or else its grand re-opening. Impossible to know with this guy.

[Virginia Dare]

18. He looks like a major idiot now..

cest la vie.

[ThoughtCriminal]

19. Just Remember - It's a trap!

Design by Acme - Executed BY Wile E. Coyote.

Beep! Beep!

[cui bono]

20. This really deserves a kick. This is the stuff that wins elections!

[malaise]

22. Romney also came out and gave McPOW credit

Don't forget McPOW also won the debate on Thursday - before the debate.

[PA Democrat]

24. Poor guy. He suffers from premature victorization.

Iraq, a presidential debate, the bailout plan......

[Vinca]

25. You have to admit. If it hadn't been for McCain, there wouldn't

have been much to laugh about yesterday. His timing was hysterical.