Wow. Not even Rupert's mouthpiece, the Wall Street Journal, is buying McCain's pathetic attempt to seize credit for the bailout agreement. Or his desperate attempt to link its failure to Obama.
Shockingly, the WSJ (WSJ!?) calls bullshit right from the starting gate:
The Wall Street bailout bill garnered 140 Democratic votes and just 65 Republican votes en route to defeat, but that didn’t stop GOP presidential nominee John McCain from blaming rival Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats for its failure.
Welcome to reality, WSJ--it's a place where John McCain will stop at nothing to deploy a bizarre gambit with a high-risk and low reward. In this world, McCain's like Wile E. Coyote but with less sense and zero character. Case in point: Have you ever seen Wile E. screw up an ACME ploy as badly as McCain has fumbled his array of gimmicky train wrecks? And have you ever seen Wile E. blame the road runner for his foiled escapades?
On McCain's brazenly shameless attempt to snatch credit and assign blame, the WJS writes:
McCain suspended his campaign Thursday morning to return to Washington to try and get a deal done. Soon after his arrival, though, an agreement that appeared to be coming together fell apart–a situation that Democrats pinned on McCain. Over the next few days, McCain’s campaign took credit for bringing House Republicans, who were reluctant to support the bailout, to the negotiating table. Late Saturday night, the House GOP leadership signed off on a deal. But the majority of the caucus still opposed it when the vote was called Monday.
McCain blamed the Democrats.
But, as the WSJ correctly notes, McCain was equally hasty to seize credit. The WSJ chronicles McCain's prolific sidling:
On Sunday, one of McCain’s top advisers, Steve Schmidt, was giving him credit for making the deal happen. "What Sen. McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this," he said on NBC’s "Meet the Press."
Earlier today, McCain, too, was taking credit: "I went to Washington last week to make sure that the taxpayers of Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill for mistakes made in Wall Street and evil and greed in Washington," he said in Columbus, Ohio.
The WSJ piece is surprisingly objective. These days, though, reality has a harsh anti-McCain, pro-Obama bias. This lesson will undoubtedly be lost on McCain's inner gambler: he shot the craps, and, once again, suffered a stunning loss. Nonetheless, for his next gambit, like the previous one, he'll be doubling down.
The WSJ piece, rife with pleasant surprises, graciously closes with a word from the Obama campaign:
UPDATE: Obama spokesman Bill Burton released a statement on the bailout vote this afternoon. "This is a moment of national crisis, and today’s inaction in Congress as well as the angry and hyper-partisan statement released by the McCain campaign are exactly why the American people are disgusted with Washington," he said, "Now is the time for Democrats and Republicans to join together and act in a way that prevents an economic catastrophe. Every American should be outraged that an era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and Washington has led us to this point, but now that we are here, the stability of our entire economy depends on us taking immediate action to ease this crisis."
Stop it, Rupert, before you start growing on me...
cross-posted on MYDD