It’s being reported everywhere that Senator John McCain is starting to make the valid case of attaching blame of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacles squarely where it belongs. Today in New Mexico McCain clearly stated that he coauthored legislation to reign in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac while the Democrats fought it in effect killing the bill in committee while the rookie Obama remained silent.
I applaud the decision for McCain to press this important issue that speaks to judgment and experience – two things that Senator Obama lacks.
From around the conservative blogosphere, the news is being met with excitement. Here are few examples:
Don’t go wobbly now, McCain.
Take your own advice: Stand up and fight.
The debate is the second-to-last chance to raise these concerns with 50 million Americans at once.
Merely making tough remarks at campaign appearances isn’t going to help.
But perhaps he’s finally heard the alarm bells.
In a statement obtained by RedState, Sen. John McCain today will lay plain the crisis on Wall Street - not to mention Main Street - firmly on the narrow shoulders of those who caused it in the first place: the Democratic Party in general, and Senator Barack Obama in particular. He’s going to talk about it all. Here’s a taste:
Senator Obama has accused me of opposing regulation to avert this crisis. I guess he believes if a lie is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed. But the truth is I was the one who called at the time for tighter restrictions on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that could have helped prevent this crisis from happening in the first place.
Senator Obama was silent on the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and his Democratic allies in Congress opposed every effort to rein them in. As recently as September of last year he said that subprime loans had been, quote, “a good idea.” Well, Senator Obama, that “good idea” has now plunged this country into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
To hear him talk now, you’d think he’d always opposed the dangerous practices at these institutions. But there is absolutely nothing in his record to suggest he did. He was surely familiar with the people who were creating this problem. The executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have advised him, and he has taken their money for his campaign. He has received more money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than any other senator in history, with the exception of the chairman of the committee overseeing them. Did he ever talk to the executives at Fannie and Freddie about these reckless loans? Did he ever discuss with them the stronger oversight I proposed? If Senator Obama is such a champion of financial regulation, why didn’t he support these regulations that could have prevented this crisis in the first place? He won’t tell you, but you deserve an answer.
To our lurkers: that’s John McCain calling your guy a gutless, two-faced coward who lets others do his fighting. Which, by the
way, is perfectly correct.
