Senator McCain may have flip-flopped for obvious political reasons on the mortgage mess, actually trying to propose a plan with solutions, albeit solutions that wouldn’t help many homeowners if he actually ever even supported the plan once he (God forbid) is President. See McCain shifts aid to some mortgage holders," Michael Cooper, New York Times, April 11, 2008, at http://www.nytimes.com/...
Now some of you may be thinking now is the time to use the Republicans’ "flip-flopper" label against them. It certainly is. But even more importantly, let’s not forget that McCain (until political pressure made him flip-flop) actually blamed hardworking Americans for this crisis.
Senator McCain may have changed his tune, but we remember what he said about this issue just two weeks ago. If there was ever a time to use the Republicans’ projectionistic, disingenuous "elitist" talking point against them, it is now more than ever before.
Why? Because Senator McCain actually insinuated that if those who can’t pay their mortgage would skip a vacation or two, we wouldn’t have to bail them out. "Of those 80 million homeowners, only 55 million have a mortgage at all, and 51 million are doing what is necessary – working a second job, skipping a vacation, and managing their budgets – to make their payments on time. That leaves us with a puzzling situation: how could 4 million mortgages cause this much trouble for us all?" From text of "John McCain’s speech on the economy", New York Times, March 25, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/...
So Senator McCain actually implied that the working people caught up in the mortgage crisis simply took too many vacations, and that’s why they can’t pay their mortgages. Yeah, I’m sure that’s it John. It isn’t that they got laid off, can’t keep up with rising gas prices, can’t keep up with rising cost of living, had a health care crisis that insurance wouldn’t pay for, or are getting jacked around with variable rates or other catches in their mortgages’ fine print. It must be that vacations are frequent in their world- just like in your rich world with your apparently plastic-surgeried-to-mannequism heiress wife. So frequent that that’s where all their money went- not to food, gas, housing, child care, and health care.
You rich elitist, Senator, thinking you are one of us when really you come from a world obviously so much more privileged. Note to Senator Obama: please quote this over and over and call your colleague and opponent what he is. His flip-flop on the issue doesn’t change that he was actually out of touch to say this to begin with.
Not all of us have a rich younger heiress wife like you do, Senator McCain. Your sugar daddy Cindy, er I mean your sugar daughter Cindy, can pay for all your bills. The rest of us have to actually work. Your Hooveresque solutions to the economic problems are the obvious antithesis of what we need, and we know that you will flip-flop back to these solutions or lack thereof once elected, despite your support for some pathetic plan of action in the meantime. The American people will reject your dangerous proposals of apathetic, ideologically-driven inaction despite the media’s constant efforts to deify you.
You have said before you were proud to have been a part of the Reagan Revolution, so of course you are not going to admit it was deregulation of financial institutions that allowed this to happen to begin with. But to blame it on the American people for taking too many vacations- when so many people can’t afford a vacation at all? Let them eat cake, right Senator?
And if they are also supposed to take second jobs according to you, where is the childcare for this coming from? They can’t afford a nanny like people in your class, nor can they afford to have one spouse not work if there are two spouses to begin with. And then you conservatives wonder why children aren’t getting raised as good as they were in them good ol’ days?
If what Obama’s minister said is fair game, what McCain himself said just two weeks ago is still fair game. It really is relevant still as it reveals his privileged perspective, despite any convenient and no doubt temporary political conversion on the issue.