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This Is What Democracy Looks Like
www.NationalView.org's Note From a Madman
September 25, 2008
The Agenda that Doesn't Match OUR Agenda
They had a deal. Senate and House members from both parties joined President
Bush and Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson in the White House Cabinet room
and hammered out a deal which looked good to go until...
Rep. John Boehner showed up.
The House of Representative Minority Leader stood up at the meeting after
President Bush showed up and, more importantly, after Senator Chris Dodd, the
Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, announced that there was an agreement
between the leaders of both Houses - Democrat and Republican alike - and said
something to the effect of "Wait a minute here."
Boehner (pronounced BANE-ER, not BONE-ER, so no funny business) was reportedly
voicing the concerns of a minority block of GOP Congress members who still don't
see why we have to bail out the banking and financial industry. They seem to not
get that there are a quarter million jobs in the balance and that after years of
deregulation - most at the insistence of people such as Boehner himself - the
financial industry and our national safety are intermingled.
'
Now, as Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican member of Senator Dodd's
committee, stated, there is no agreement.
Funny thing, though...
Boehner's interruption came not only after the deal was made, but after a
meeting he and other House Republicans had a sit down with none other than
senator John McCain.
McCain and Boehner, together, are the two sides of the monkey wrench clogging up
the gears.
By all accounts from the likes of CNN and XM Satellite Radio's POTUS 08, The
Candidate Formerly Known as The Maverick had nothing to say as the deal was
reached; nor did he have anything to say even as Boehner stood up. In fact,
according to the CNN pool reporter, it was Senator Barack Obama who had asked
Boehner, Secretary Paulson and others who were there to complete the deal if the
concerns expressed by Boehner could be included in the current deal.
They were not compatible.
But did McCain have something to say in the private meeting he held with Boehner
and the other Republicans of the House? The meeting between McCain and that
group was secret, with McCain taking the Congressional underground subway to
attend. And the usually stop-for-a-chat Senator from Arizona didn't even wave a
paw to visiting tourists as he passed them in the halls of Congress on the way
to his office for some quiet time., according to CNN.
Prior to the meeting at the White House, and after the GOP House-McCain
get-together, McCain spent about three-and-one-half hours sequestered in his
office.
I wonder what he was doing? Perhaps a nap.
What Boehner managed to accomplish with his halting of the deal is to delay the
inevitable. But just how long will the delay be? Certainly with the promise by
McCain that he won't appear at the debate until after a deal is reached is
something that is a possibility.
But was it the plan all along?
And what happens if the debate about the deal goes on just long enough to make
the vote occur at exactly the same time the debate is supposed to take place?
Are we to simply call that a coincidence?
McCain has already said that he won't show up for the debate and will not
campaign while we, and he, wait for a deal to be agreed upon. Certainly we had
that until, at least, "the meeting". But McCain hasn't exactly been true to his
word this Summer-into-Fall. For example, we've all seen the ads attempting to
associate Senator Obama with the former CEO of Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines
who, just by coincidence is African American. Both Obama and Raines know little
of each other while McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, has been taking both
Fannie Mae's and Freddie Mac's money until just last month, a fact - yes, FACT -
that McCain lied about just last week.
(Isn't it funny how so many McCain attack ads feature African Americans
associated with Senator Obama? Covert or over - racism is racism.)
McCain, in fact, hasn't stopped campaigning. He appeared last night at the
Clinton Initiative in New York; hasn't closed down and sent home a single staff
member; is continuing to air the same slanderous lies-as-commercials in
battleground states; and hasn't put up a "closed for the duration" sign on his
web site as of yet (not that he ever will).
McCain even went to Washington, DC on false pretenses. Until he was invited by
President Bush, his attendance, something he hasn't done much of in the past two
years, would have been nothing but a distraction for the members of the Finance
Committees of both Houses of congress. What could a man who admitted that he
knows little about the economy do to help the situation?
Not much, if truth be told.
And what about his leadership abilities? Surely out of all the other Senators
and Congressional members present with our nation's elected leader - George W.
Bush - they could have come up with someone willing to take the reigns.
Does John McCain want us to seriously think that nothing would have gotten done
unless he showed up? Or maybe, just maybe, his visit to DC and his threat of not
showing up at the debate in Mississippi were just a political statement.
Some think that McCain wants to move the debate to October 2 - next week. This
would, of course, cancel the scheduled debate between his running mate Governor
Sarah Palin of Alaska and Obama's running mate Senator Joe Biden of Delaware.
Could McCain possibly be afraid to have the woman who didn't know what the Bush
Doctrine was (a
whole-heartedly) debate Biden?
Could be.
McCain is using the worst financial catastrophe, one he and his chief economic
advisor Phil Gramm - the then-Senator who wrote the bill - as political fodder.
The good news is that less and less of us are falling for it.
-Noah Greenberg
In response to John McCain's appearance in DC and his threat to not show up for
the debate tomorrow night, Anonymous writes:
Please help me understand how having Senator McCain at the table to negotiate
the bailout will be of benefit since he already has admitted that he doesn’t
understand economics. It seems to me that, if time is of the essence, we would
not want to have the people who understand economics teaching a remedial course
to the Republican candidate when they could be spending their time working out a
solution.
And Denise writes:
I am so glad Obama didn't take the bait McCain offered on not campaigning and no
debate. Obama has a very smart, creative campaign team and he is smart as well.
It was just another silly, symbolic move on McCain's part. That is the problem
with most of the current politicians - symbolism and I am sick to my stomach of
it. I personally don't care if McCain shows up or not because no matter what the
question is, he will just tell us he was a POW for the l billionth time.
If Senator Lindsey Graham becomes his mouthpiece at the debate that should knock
Obama way ahead in the polls. He tends not to follow the advice or scripts he is
given when talking in public and should make a pretty good mess for McCain to
clean up.
The debate will be interesting with or without McCain.
Send your comments to: NationalView@aol.com
-Noah Greenberg