More Proof John McCain and those around him just don't get it.
This op-ed is screaming to be made into a 30 second ad by Sen. Obama. This is PERFECT to continue the out-of-touch John McCain doesn't get it meme IMO. It's a hard and fair hit especially since Mr. Lushkin says clearly: "Full Disclosure: I'm an advisor to John McCain's campaign..." But don't make the mistake,please!, of doing this w/Phil Gramm too. No, just do a straight Lushkin ad and a Phil Gramm ad and close both with the video of McCain himself not knowing about the economy. You can also throw in two sepearte ads about Greenspan and Buffett also endorsing Obama's positions. With seperate 30 second ads in heavy rotation you get the public to see a lot of people clearly realize John McCain doesn't have a plan for this economy.
"It was the worst of times, and it was the worst of times."
I imagine that's what Charles Dickens would conclude about the current condition of the U.S. economy, based on the relentless drumbeat of pessimism in the media and on the campaign trail. In the past two months, this newspaper alone has written no fewer than nine times, in news stories, columns and op-eds, that key elements of the economy are the worst they've been "since the Great Depression." That diagnosis has been applied twice to the housing "slump" and once to the housing "crisis," to the "severe" decline in home prices, to the "spike" in mortgage foreclosures, to the "change" in the mortgage market and the "turmoil" in debt markets, and to the "crisis" or "meltdown" in financial markets.
It's a virus -- and it's spreading. Do a Google News search for "since the Great Depression," and you come up with more than 4,500 examples of the phrase's use in just the past month.
But that doesn't make any of it true. Things today just aren't that bad. Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. None of this, however, is cause for depression -- or exaggerated Depression comparisons.
Seriously: with Merrill Lynch, Countrywide, Fannie and Freddie Mac, IndyMac, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers collapse we're obviously headed to a major and dramatic restructuring of the US financial markets the likes of which we actually haven't seen since the Great Depression. And McCain's campaign is going on about how it's all sunshine and roses.
And there are enough data points out there to credibly say John McCain doesn't understand that at all.