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A New McCain Bamboozle--The 9/11 Commission
Yesterday, when I heard John McCain say that he wanted to form a "9/11 commission" to look into the financial crisis, I thought it was an awkward choice of words. Didn't he mean a 9/11-style commission? I chalked it up to problems reading the teleprompter and promptly forgot about it. Later in the day, I heard him use the phrase again in an interview. And then another. Each time, he used the same odd formulation: "We're going to need a 9/11 commission"--as if "9/11 commission" is now a generic term for an investigative committee. Last evening, as I was watching The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, I heard it again--this time coming from Douglas Holtz-Eakin, senior policy advisor to the McCain campaign, and the guy who let it be known to the world yesterday that John McCain had invented the Blackberry. Check out this exchange between Judy Woodruff, Obama economic advisor Robert Reich, and McCain advisor Holtz-Eakin.
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WOODRUFF: Robert Reich, let me bring you back into the conversation now. You've heard Doug Holtz-Eakin say that John McCain was for regulation, but in an appropriate manner--not an excessive amount of regulation.
REICH: Well, Judy, everybody's in favor of appropriate regulation. When John McCain was head of the Senate Commerce Committee over the past few years, it was just deregulation, deregulation and deregulation. As Douglas Holtz-Eakin just said, John McCain wants to refer to a commission. Well, that's Washington shorthand for doing nothing, I'm afraid. We've had commissions after commissions after commissions looking at this problem. Look, John McCain's whole record is in favor of a lot of these big companies and a lot of these big investment banks. By contrast, Barack Obama's economic approach is bottom-up: don't give big tax breaks to the big corporations, don't give even more tax breaks on top of those that the rich have already got from the Bush administration, don't simply push further the Bush administration's agenda for the economy, because it doesn't work. Barack Obama says, "Instead of top-down economics, let's have bottom-up economics." Protecting investors, protecting the little guy, protecting jobs, protecting Main Street. Helping people with tax breaks that go to them. Helping people with education and health care that goes to them. You couldn't have two more dramatically contrasting philosophies.
WOODRUFF: Doug Holtz-Eakin, specifically the point about the 9/11 commission. The argument from the Obama campaign: "That's not needed."
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, I, uh, this is, uh, you know, sadly predictable. I think if you look back, you'll see Barack Obama has said many favorable things about the 9/11 Commission.
I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, but this sure looks like the genesis of a new bamboozle to me. Are they seriously considering charging Obama with hypocrisy for being for the 9/11 Commission before he was against it? Good luck with that one...
Here's a link to the Podcast if you want to hear it for yourself:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2008/09/16/20080916_regulation28.mp3
It's about 2/3 of the way through the interview.
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WOODRUFF: Robert Reich, let me bring you back into the conversation now. You've heard Doug Holtz-Eakin say that John McCain was for regulation, but in an appropriate manner--not an excessive amount of regulation.
REICH: Well, Judy, everybody's in favor of appropriate regulation. When John McCain was head of the Senate Commerce Committee over the past few years, it was just deregulation, deregulation and deregulation. As Douglas Holtz-Eakin just said, John McCain wants to refer to a commission. Well, that's Washington shorthand for doing nothing, I'm afraid. We've had commissions after commissions after commissions looking at this problem. Look, John McCain's whole record is in favor of a lot of these big companies and a lot of these big investment banks. By contrast, Barack Obama's economic approach is bottom-up: don't give big tax breaks to the big corporations, don't give even more tax breaks on top of those that the rich have already got from the Bush administration, don't simply push further the Bush administration's agenda for the economy, because it doesn't work. Barack Obama says, "Instead of top-down economics, let's have bottom-up economics." Protecting investors, protecting the little guy, protecting jobs, protecting Main Street. Helping people with tax breaks that go to them. Helping people with education and health care that goes to them. You couldn't have two more dramatically contrasting philosophies.
WOODRUFF: Doug Holtz-Eakin, specifically the point about the 9/11 commission. The argument from the Obama campaign: "That's not needed."
HOLTZ-EAKIN: Well, I, uh, this is, uh, you know, sadly predictable. I think if you look back, you'll see Barack Obama has said many favorable things about the 9/11 Commission.
I'll leave it to you to draw your own conclusions, but this sure looks like the genesis of a new bamboozle to me. Are they seriously considering charging Obama with hypocrisy for being for the 9/11 Commission before he was against it? Good luck with that one...
Here's a link to the Podcast if you want to hear it for yourself:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rss/media/2008/09/16/20080916_regulation28.mp3
It's about 2/3 of the way through the interview.
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We're all in favor of the 9/11 commission. But Obama is also in favor of actually implementing the recommendations of the commission.
This reminds me of Seinfeld at the rental car counter when they tell him they don't have any cars for him. "You know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation...."
September 17, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
No offense intended, but your reply is worrisome to me because it indicates that they might just be able to get away with this garbage. The point is, McCain's not talking about the 9/11 Commission--he's just using the phrase in a generic way because they're trying to obscure the message and make people believe that the 9/11 Commission and McCain's "9/11 commission" are the same thing. This is positively Orwellian.
September 17, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
No offense taken. My attempted point, poorly stated, was that (1) the "Obama has said many favorable things about the 9/11 Commission" makes no sense at all--saying the 9/11 Commission was a good thing doesn't mean having Commissions for everything is a good thing, and (2) the real important part of the Commission's work was not its existence, but the corrective measures they proposed--just as the important thing now is to implement corrective measures.
September 18, 2008 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We're all in favor of the 9/11 commission. But Obama is also in favor of actually implementing the recommendations of the commission."
Yeah, I hope he is also in favor of Bush and Chaney testifying under oath and separately sometime in the future.
McBush's mentions of 9/11 is a double edged sword. And SO 2001.
September 18, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here is where McCain's commission proposal makes him look like a complete dunce:
He also said yesterday:
"I was chairman of the Commerce Committee that oversights every part of our economy,”
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/16/mccain-commerce-committee/
Since he was, doesn't his call for a special commission, to look into the Wall Street Disaster, and tell him what needs to be done, expose McCain as having not learned a damn thing about the financial markets, during his long stint as "chairman of the Commerce Committee"
Isn't that the most damning revelation of all, that McCain told us about himself!
He just admitted that he has no idea about what went on during the financial markets collapse, and as President he would be completely in the dark about what to do about it.
McCain told us, yesterday, that he did not learn a damn thing about the workings of the nation's commerce, and banking systems, even though he chaired the Senate Committee, for many years.
McCain admitted that he is still just as poor a student as when he ended up in the bottom five of his class at the Navel Academy.
McCain is too stupid to be President. He is actually even dumber that the current Moron in Chief.
September 17, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
liam, see my response downstream! It got rejected the first time and I forgot to re-click as a reply. Sorry for the confusion!
September 17, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
"not learned a damn thing about the financial markets, during his long stint as "chairman of the Commerce Committee""
Yeah, I think McBush is actually reinforcing one of Obama's new talking points as in, "chairman of the Commerce Committee" and didn't do a think to prevent this mess.
No wonder McBush keeps POWing us. LOL
September 18, 2008 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excuse me, a plane did not crash into Wall Street. This wasn't a surprise attack.
You can read plenty of people warning about this stuff for a while. Worrying about real estate asset bubbles, unregulated complex derivatives, etc... We have lots of regulations on the books for comparable situations, and more on the shelf ready to go.
What we have is a failure of political philosophy. An unregulated market works most efficiently and therefore is best, say the Free Market Religion Zealots. Turns out there are other values in finance that are also important such as trust, transparency, responsibility.
We need a system where people understand the instruments being traded, and adequate precautions are taken in case things go south. Then under those rules make things as efficient as possible.
September 17, 2008 12:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
The 9-11 Commission didn't actually go and clear the rubble off of ground zero, or try to track down the perpetrators. That's what we need right now, with respect to Wall Street.
The good news is, outside of the McCain bubble, everyone thinks this "9-11 commission" theme is a downright silly, and transparently political ploy.
September 17, 2008 2:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
They're trying to perpetuate the theme and keep the fear alive. This is a patently ridiculous way to do it. Although I have seriously underestimated the ignorance of the American voter before, I don't think they'll fall for this. Wouldn't the logical reaction to it be a what the...? What's he talking about? This makes no sense whatsoever.
September 17, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama could pivot like this:
John McCain thinks that a 9/11 commission should be set up to investigate the economic situation. Now, of course we know he does not mean the 9/11 comission literally since that one was investigating an act of terrorism after the fact, just something similar. We cannot really afford to wait the months and years that it would take the commission to bring John McCain up to date. Most of us have seen this coming for a long time... [go into stump]
I am really not very concerned about this as a threat, but it might be a good opportunity for a jab.
Of course, when Matthew Weaver or someone comes by to demand a 9/11 commission, one could inquire how they think a terrorism specialist commission would help in an economic crisis.
September 17, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
liam, that is just the tip of the pustule!
The Interstate Commerce Commission has NO jurisdiction over banks, lending institutions, or stock brokers, for that matter. It certainly doesn't "oversight (sic) every part of our economy.
It is the Senate Banking Commission that has jurisdiction over this mess. The conclusions have to be:
1. McCain doesn't even know what his committee does (probably because he never attends their meetings)
2. If he did think his committee oversaw these parts of the economy, why didn't he think he owed us all an explanation for screwing up oversight so royally?
3. McCain is simply either not actually interested in mastering the fine points of economic policy, or he is not smart enough to do so.
4. He thinks that simple phrases like "I know how to fix the economy," and "I know how to win wars" will keep the base confident in him. To a point he is right, but I don't think there are enough of them.
I certainly hope I am right about this.
September 17, 2008 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm beginning to believe that Holtz-Eakin is the one who came up with the "9/11 commission" idea and that he's behind the bamboozle as well. I just heard him say it again on CNN: "Barack Obama says he's against Senator McCain's 9/11 commission, but he's said nice things about the 9/11 Commission in the past."
So Barack Obama was FOR the real 9/11 Commission before he was AGAINST McCain's phony 9/11 commission. Troubling.
September 18, 2008 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama wants MORE and BIGGER government, and as far as he is concerned 9/11 was "America's Chickens Coming HOME to ROOST!" This is disgraceful! I know that John McCain will do EXACTLY as he pledges but Obama lies and flip flops, NOW he is concerned with the economy? WHEN he pledges to raise taxes, and tax and spend, and institute MORE welfare programs?
He is a danger to society, and his band of anti American hate mongers is making it worse, I will be glad when he loses and goes back to the Chicago slums!
September 18, 2008 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's the Republicans that are tax and spend. Your boy Bush has this country in the highest debt in the history of our country, and presided over the largest expanse of government ever. Most of us are tired of bailing out incompetent millionaires and suffering from their unabashed inbred nepotism.
If you want people to take you seriously, try interjecting at least a bit of reality into your sophomoric, elitist, and moronic rants.
Thanks.
September 18, 2008 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink