09-24-2008, 09:07 PM
The NYT, not exactly a cheerleader for the McCain campaign, has a more balanced reporting of the story than our indignant bickering would suggest:
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"...Governor Rendell said that if Congressional Democrats believed they were close to a compromise agreement on the bailout, it might behoove Mr. Obama to return to Washington as well.
“If I was Senator Obama, I would call the Democratic leadership to see how close we were in coming to the crucial moment, and if we’re close, I would consider going to Washington too,” Mr. Rendell said. “But if we’re not close, I see no reason to.”
It is not the first major moment of the campaign that Mr. McCain has sought to suspend the campaign this year. When the Republicans gathered for their nominating convention in St. Paul at the beginning of the month, Mr. McCain suspended the first day of the convention because of concerns about Hurricane Gustav, which was bearing down on the Gulf.
In announcing that he was going to stop campaigning, Mr McCain said that “it has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration’s proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.”
Conservative Republicans, in particular, have been skeptical of the plan, and looking to Mr. McCain, now the party’s de facto leader, for leadership.
Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have said that action must be taken, but have urged greater oversight built into the plan, to monitor how the Treasury Department plans to use taxpayer money to take distressed assets off the hands of failing financial firms, as well as guarantees that taxpayer money is not used to enrich Wall Street executives.
Mr. McCain made the call after spending more than an hour preparing for Friday’s debate at the Morgan Library and Museum — which, by coincidence, is where J. Pierpont Morgan bailed the country out of the great financial panic of 1907 by locking the leading bankers of the day in his library and forcing them to come up with a rescue plan.
Speaking to a small pool of reporters at his hotel in midtown Manhattan, Mr. McCain read his statement from a Teleprompter, and took no questions.
He also cancelled a planned appearance on “Late Night With David Letterman.”
Mr. McCain has sometimes sent mixed signals about the bailout package. He struck a negative tone Monday in Scranton, Pa., warning, “We won’t solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight.”
On Tuesday he continued to press for changes to the proposal, but sounded a more urgent note that something must be done, declaring in Michigan that “further inaction is simply not an option.”
The fiscal crisis has put both candidates in a tremendously uncomfortable position — torn between an unpopular plan to use $700 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out Wall Street firms, or to risk what the Bush administration warns would be a widening financial crisis that could wipe out the savings of retirees, make it difficult to secure mortgages or college loans, and send the economy into a downward spiral."
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"...Governor Rendell said that if Congressional Democrats believed they were close to a compromise agreement on the bailout, it might behoove Mr. Obama to return to Washington as well.
“If I was Senator Obama, I would call the Democratic leadership to see how close we were in coming to the crucial moment, and if we’re close, I would consider going to Washington too,” Mr. Rendell said. “But if we’re not close, I see no reason to.”
It is not the first major moment of the campaign that Mr. McCain has sought to suspend the campaign this year. When the Republicans gathered for their nominating convention in St. Paul at the beginning of the month, Mr. McCain suspended the first day of the convention because of concerns about Hurricane Gustav, which was bearing down on the Gulf.
In announcing that he was going to stop campaigning, Mr McCain said that “it has become clear that no consensus has developed to support the Administration’s proposal. I do not believe that the plan on the table will pass as it currently stands, and we are running out of time.”
Conservative Republicans, in particular, have been skeptical of the plan, and looking to Mr. McCain, now the party’s de facto leader, for leadership.
Both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have said that action must be taken, but have urged greater oversight built into the plan, to monitor how the Treasury Department plans to use taxpayer money to take distressed assets off the hands of failing financial firms, as well as guarantees that taxpayer money is not used to enrich Wall Street executives.
Mr. McCain made the call after spending more than an hour preparing for Friday’s debate at the Morgan Library and Museum — which, by coincidence, is where J. Pierpont Morgan bailed the country out of the great financial panic of 1907 by locking the leading bankers of the day in his library and forcing them to come up with a rescue plan.
Speaking to a small pool of reporters at his hotel in midtown Manhattan, Mr. McCain read his statement from a Teleprompter, and took no questions.
He also cancelled a planned appearance on “Late Night With David Letterman.”
Mr. McCain has sometimes sent mixed signals about the bailout package. He struck a negative tone Monday in Scranton, Pa., warning, “We won’t solve a problem caused by poor oversight with a plan that has no oversight.”
On Tuesday he continued to press for changes to the proposal, but sounded a more urgent note that something must be done, declaring in Michigan that “further inaction is simply not an option.”
The fiscal crisis has put both candidates in a tremendously uncomfortable position — torn between an unpopular plan to use $700 billion in taxpayer funds to bail out Wall Street firms, or to risk what the Bush administration warns would be a widening financial crisis that could wipe out the savings of retirees, make it difficult to secure mortgages or college loans, and send the economy into a downward spiral."