John McCain is full of shit (again)

After the House GOP killed the bailout bill, John McCain was out in front of any TV camera he could find, blaming that failure on Obama and the Dems saying,

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. It's time to fix the problem".

OK, let's put aside the fact that 1) Senator Obama has no vote in the House and 2) two thirds of the House GOP voted against the bill despite McCain's alleged arm-twisting. Ben Smith at Politico is reporting that the Republican National Committee choreographed this bit of political kabuki for the sake of providing as issue on which vulnerable Republicans could run.

The Republican National Committee's new advertisement critical of the the Wall Street "bailout" was produced and sent to television stations in key states before the package failed [emphasis mine], officials at two stations said.

"Wall Street Squanders our money. And Washington is forced to bail them out with -- you guessed it -- our money. Can it get any worse?" asks the ad's narrator, as the words "BAILOUT WITH OUR MONEY" cross the screen. (The answer: Obama's plans would make it worse.)

The ad, however, seems to assume that it can safely attack a successful plan. And the reason may be the timing: Though it started airing this morning, the spot was released to stations yesterday morning, ad executives at stations in Michigan and Pennsylvania said.

Kae Buck of WLNS in Lansing said her station received the at at 7:55 a.m. Monday. Luanne Russell of Pittsburgh's WTAE said her station received it at 10:49 Monday morning.

The ad taps into deep resentment of the plan, but it comes at a time when the candidate it supports, John McCain, is urging its package, and asking that it not be referred to as a "bailout," but a "rescue."

It seems the plan was to get just enough GOP support from safe seats to pass the bailout as a Democratic effort and then run against it. Let’s think about that for a moment. The GOP is willing to play Russian roulette with the economy in a cynical ploy to retain power. Reckless, stupid, unpatriotic, mind numbingly irresponsible – call this what you will but what you cannot call it is uncoordinated. Are we to believe that John McCain, their Presidential candidate, knew nothing of this? Not bloody likely, especially when McCain flack Brad Todd claims the ad’s focus was Obama’s spending priorities; also a pack of lies given the ad's content but proof that McCain and his people knew the ad was coming. His campaign had to have been a party to this tactic. They just didn’t count on McCain being an ineffective whip on the House GOP such that the bill failed, adding the sin of incompetence, both McCain’s and the RNC’s, to the mix as well.

And yet yesterday we had the straight talkin’ Maverick, full of invented bluster and faux-indignation, trying to lay this whole mess at the feet of Obama and the Democrats. Like I said, John McCain is full of shit. Furthermore, somebody ought to sue his campaign to drop its “Country First” slogan on the grounds that it is false advertising.