Great Moments In Straight Talk

After Sen. McCain's speech on the credit crisis, our own Robert Borosage wrote: [1] "John McCain delivered what was billed as a major policy address on the crisis – and advocated….essentially doing nothing more."

Yesterday, Sen. Barack Obama made a similar charge: [2] "In his entire speech yesterday, he offered not one policy, not one idea, not one bit of relief... ."

(And today, Sen. Hillary Clinton is planning to say in a speech: [3] "I read Senator McCain’s plan which does virtually nothing to ease the credit crisis or the housing crisis.")

The McCain campaign quickly responded to Obama's remarks, accusing him of "blatant mischaracterizations." But read the entire statement [4] from McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds, and ask yourself, "what's missing?"

Senator Obama’s blatant mischaracterizations aren’t the new politics he’s promised America, they’re the old attack and smear tactics that Americans are tired of.

Barack Obama’s diagnosis for our housing market is clearly that Barack Obama knows best — raise taxes on hardworking Americans and give government a prescription to spend.

John McCain has called for an immediate and balanced approach to provide transparency and accountability in an effort to help homeowners who are hurting, while Barack Obama has made a $10 billion election-year promise that is sure to raise taxes and handcuff an already struggling economy.

Can you find one policy, one idea, one bit of relief?

Hilarious.

Such is the problem with conservatism.

Conservatives don't believe that our government has a role to play so our economy works for everyone (except for bailing out irresponsible Wall Street firms, of course. [5]) . But they often refuse to actually say that they don't want to take any public action, especially when it's clear that most Americans are calling upon their government to take action.

Once again [1], so much for straight talk.