Obama & McCain On The Attack

Obama on the attack:

Democrat Barack Obama seized on the issue by launching a two-week economic tour meant to highlight his differences with McCain on taxes, spending priorities and other matters. At every turn he is tying McCain to President Bush, whose approval ratings are consistently low.

To tie McCain to Bush requires lots of twisting and spinning of events. But there is a comparison that requires none of that when talking about Obama and McCain finally pulled it out:

“You know one of his favorite phrases is that I would be a Bush third term. Well I think maybe his proposals could be a Carter second term,”

Which is 100% true. Everything Obama stands for and wants to do to this country could be Jimmy Carter redux.

As far as economic policies we should look at the people Obama chooses to surround himself with as Ed Morrissey noted, the Obama campaign attacked Hillary because of the ties between her manager and Countrywide, the company at the forefront of the subprime collapse. Problem is, his own campaign has its own skeletons:

…Obama has little problem working with people connected to Countrywide, either. Jim Johnson, who also has connections to the Fannie Mae scandal, accepted over $2 million in real-estate loans from Countrywide. The rates he received on those loans were significantly lower than market value at the time:

These borrowers, known internally as “friends of Angelo” or FoA, include two former CEOs of Fannie Mae, the biggest buyer of Countrywide’s mortgages, say people familiar with the matter.

One was James Johnson, a longtime Democratic Party power and an adviser to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign, who this past week was named to a panel that is vetting running-mate possibilities for the presumed nominee. …

This gives us hypocrisy on two levels. First, the Obama campaign made a specific point of scolding Hillary Clinton for hiring Mark Penn as her strategist after he represented Countrywide. Now they’ve put the selection of his running mate in the hands of someone who got sweetheart deals from Countrywide while running Fannie Mae, which seems a lot more problematic than being a paid flack for the lender.

Obama’s answer?

This story is overblown and irrelevant.

And some of the usual “yeah but look at McCain’s guys!” crapola. Jim Geraghty notes the hypocrisy:

Here’s the thing… Johnson made $21 million in one year from Fannie-Mae, a quasi-private corporation that enjoys a massive subsidy of taxpayers’ money.

Obama repeatedly complains about CEOs making more in ten minutes than most workers make in a year, calling it a “moral deficit.” If Johnson worked the standard 40 hour week for 52 weeks that year, he had an hourly rate of $10,096.15.

Isn’t this beautiful? The guy who runs on “change” and hasn’t seen a Socialist program he didn’t like has a corporate fatcat, as he would call him, working to find his VP. Freakin beautiful!

Just the kind of candidate to attack McCain on economy policy…..riiiiiight

And the quote of the day from Jim:

In those talking points is the line, “Barack Obama understands what homeowners are going through.” Of course. That’s why he had convicted felon Tony Rezko help him buy his house.

heh..

Curt

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