Blogs For Victory

Yet another one, on the financial crisis, as noted by the Washington Post:

TO LISTEN to Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain is a Johnny-come-lately to the cause of regulating financial markets. “He has consistently opposed the sorts of common-sense regulations that might have lessened the current crisis,” Mr. Obama said in New Mexico yesterday. “When I was warning about the danger ahead on Wall Street months ago because of the lack of oversight, Senator McCain was telling the Wall Street Journal — and I quote — ‘I’m always for less regulation.’ ”

But the full quotation from Mr. McCain’s March interview with the Journal’s editorial board belies Mr. Obama’s one-sided rendition. The Republican candidate went on to say, “But I am aware of the view that there is a need for government oversight. I think we found this in the subprime lending crisis — that there are people that game the system and if not outright broke the law, they certainly engaged in unethical conduct which made this problem worse. So I do believe that there is role for oversight.”…

…when it comes to regulating financial institutions and corporate misconduct, Mr. McCain’s record is more in keeping with his current rhetoric. In the aftermath of the Enron collapse and other accounting scandals, he was a leader, with Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), in pushing to require that companies treat stock options granted to employees as expenses on their balance sheets. “I have long opposed unnecessary regulation of business activity, mindful that the heavy hand of government can discourage innovation,” he wrote in a July 2002 op-ed in the New York Times. “But in the current climate only a restoration of the system of checks and balances that once protected the American investor — and that has seriously deteriorated over the past 10 years — can restore the confidence that makes financial markets work.”

Mr. McCain was an early voice calling for the resignation of Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey Pitt, charging that he “seems to prefer industry self-policing to necessary lawmaking. Government’s demands for corporate accountability are only credible if government executives are held accountable as well.”

In 2006, he pushed for stronger regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — while Mr. Obama was notably silent. “If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole,” Mr. McCain warned at the time.

I wouldn’t put it that Obama was “notably silent” as Fannie and Freddie staggered towards collapse – Obama was very likely oblivious to it all. Unaware of the various cross-currents of government corruption, corporate mis- and malfeasance and speculative absurdities, something like the then-looming crisis in the real estate and sub-prime markets just wouldn’t register. It did for some – I was reading about the stresses in this area a couple years ago…and even as I paid a bit of attention to it (helped, it must be noted, by the fact that I work in the financial industry), I was still caught by surprise at the scope of the problem. When you’re being stroked by an adoring press and you head is being turned by people telling you that you can be President when you’ve done nothing of note in your life, you find you don’t have time for pettifogging details like the sub-prime meltdown.

McCain, on the other hand, was actually out there issuing warnings – and warnings which, had they been acted upon, might have prevented or at least curtailed the current financial crunch. McCain would be able to tune into such things – even though, like Obama, he’s wealthy and thus insulated from personal financial risk – because he’s a man with real-world experience and a person with a long list of accomplishments stretching back decades. In other words, McCain wasn’t distracted with himself, and was thus able to focus on the problem. So, too, it would be in the White House – Obama would be legacy hunting from day one, McCain would be searching for ways to put country first from day one.

In our choice this November we have very stark alternatives – a lightweight who believes his own press releases, and a scarred veteran of life and politics who simply wants to do a good turn for the nation which has given him so much. You get to decide, fellow Americans – and I’m betting that we’ll choose wisely.