Obama KICKS THE CRAP out of the Republicans this morning

by: General Content

Mon Sep 15, 2008 at 08:43:39 AM CDT

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Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama said Monday the upheaval on Wall Street was "the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression" and blamed it on policies that he said Republican rival John McCain supports.

"This country can't afford another four years of this failed philosophy," Obama said after the shock-wave announcements that financial giant Lehman Brothers was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while titan Merrill Lynch was being bought by Bank of America for about $50 billion.

Obama's statement, issued as he prepared to fly to Colorado to begin a swing through contested Western states, was intended to serve two purposes: to link McCain with the unpopular presidency of George W. Bush and to express sympathy with the anxiety of most Americans who say the economy is issue No. 1 in the election.

"The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store," Obama said in a statement. "Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."

This is what Senator John McCain said in New Hampshire last year:

"There's a new emphasis on economic issues on everybody's part," said Charlie Black, a McCain strategist. "The first thing you have to do is let voters know it's a concern to you about economic anxiety."

McCain stood before a line graph showing the increase of the alternative-minimum tax, a low-budget campaign's alternative to the PowerPoint presentation Mitt Romney uses when talking about economic policy, a subject on McCain has said he feels he unknowledgeable that filling the void would be a priority when selecting a vice-presidential nominee.

Like Mike Huckabee, who joked recently that he "may not be the expert that some people are on foreign policy, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night," McCain suggested to reporters Monday that American consumer culture offered a short cut to expertise. "The issue
of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said. "I've got Greenspan's book."

This is what needs to get repeated over and over again--his statement that he would pick a Vice Presidential nominee who would fill in what I would call his 'knowledge gap' on economics sure went out the fucking window, didn't it? Bless her heart, but Sarah Palin doesn't fill ANY knowledge gaps, does she?

UPDATE - 1120 AM E

Good God, he doesn't even know what the fuck he's talking about, does he? Give us BACK the car keys, Grampa! Hello? Phil Gramm? PHIL GRAMM??? Phil Fucking Gramm is your ECONOMIC ADVISOR! You know--one of the assholes responsible for all of this?

I didn't notice it earlier, but check out the dudes behind him, fanning themselves. Do you think they give a shit? McCain can't even read the script right...

h/t to the Zoo!

"The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that are generating enormous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets," Obama said in a statement.

"This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments," he added.

Yeah, that's all well and good--but whose policies have led us here? Who failed to provide oversight of the financial sector? Who gutted the protections and let the sharks run wild in the mortgage industry? Who has been in charge?

Who has a ridiculous grasp of what's going on? John McCain, that's who:

On Social Security, the Arizona senator says he still backs a system of private retirement accounts that President Bush pushed unsuccessfully, and disowned details of a Social Security proposal on his campaign Web site.

Sen. McCain said the Federal Reserve should cut interest rates now to bolster the economy, but added that as president, he couldn't be so explicit on monetary policy. "Presidents have to be careful so they're not perceived as putting undue political pressure on the Fed," he said. "So I would certainly be more careful than I am today."

With the U.S. economy softening, he said he might have "a couple of fireside chats with the American people because of what we see in the [consumer] confidence barometers." But he added that the most potent economic stimulus would be to assure Americans that taxes won't go up in the future and to "call for a meaningful -- and I mean meaningful -- approach to simplifying the tax code so that it's fairer and flatter."

That's what McCain said in March. He needs to be have his quote about Social Security and fireside chats repeated over and over again. We need to spread these things everywhere and show the American people that he is out of touch and has never had a clue as to what's going on.