For me, last night’s debate between John McCain and Barak Obama was anti-climatic. The debate highlighted the stark differences between the two candidates, but these differences were already readily apparent to most observers. If you preferred McCain and his philosophy before the debate, you probably still do. If you preferred Obama and his philosophy before the debate, you probably still do. I cannot understand how anyone could still be undecided, but if you were undecided before the debate, you are probably still undecided and more confused than ever. Since I do not believe the debate changed many minds, I would have to characterize it as a draw, with neither candidate emerging as the clear winner.
The economic portion of the debate was most remarkable for what was not said by either candidate. We are in the midst of a major meltdown in the financial markets, but neither candidate offered any solutions to the problems we are facing. Obama, of course, blamed the Republicans, the Bush Administration and an anti-regulation culture for the problems. McCain talked about greed and lack of responsibility, but he failed to respond effectively to Obama’s charges about the cause of the problems, and he failed to mention that the Democrats played a leading role in establishing the laws and regulations that led to the subprime mortgage crisis, which in turn led to many of the other financial problems we are facing. To my dismay, both candidates failed to show leadership by taking a stand on what should be done to deal with the crisis. Both candidates dodged the difficult issues currently being debated in Congress.
McCain was successful in showing that he, unlike Obama, has a strong record as a fiscal conservative. McCain also came across to me as having much more knowledge and experience in matters involving foreign policy and national security and as being more prepared than Obama to serve as Commander-in-Chief.
The biggest surprise in the debate for me was Obama’s demeanor. I have always viewed Obama as being very likeable, very personable and extremely polished. Last night, I thought Obama’s conduct when McCain was speaking reflected anger and impatience and bordered on being rude. He repeatedly interrupted McCain or murmured comments under his breath when McCain was speaking. Obama’s demeanor last night was different from the pleasant demeanor I have observed in the past.
McCain’s style during the debate was not without fault. He came across as arrogant and condescending when he repeatedly said, “Senator Obama does not understand that….” I suppose the statement could be true, but it is more likely that McCain and Obama simply disagree, and a disagreement is not the same as a lack of understanding.
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2 comments:
I missed the Obama anger you were able to discern. I pretty much agree with others who watched.
McCain was indeed transparently angry. I think it goes beyond the debate or even the campaign.
John McCain suffered unimaginably in service to the rest of us. When his sacrifices are denigrated or ignored by those who never endured such treatment, his anger is understandable. I believe this instance is more revealing than the debate.
Readers may find this Truth-Check of value, from Politi-Check.com - a very credible source for sorting thru candidate claims:
McCain's 'warning' on Fannie & Freddie
By Adriel Bettelheim
PolitiFact.com
Published on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 05:23 p.m.
SUMMARY: McCain spoke up after a widely read report drew attention to chicanery at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it’s a huge stretch to suggest he could have somehow averted the current crisis.
The turmoil on Wall Street is prompting the presidential candidates to offer prescriptions for restoring order to U.S. financial markets. John McCain is using the opportunity to remind voters that he called on Congress to crack down on government-chartered mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Appearing on CNN’s American Morning on Sept. 16, 2008, McCain sought to blame much of the crisis on Wall Street greed and inept or corrupt government regulators. “Ask any American citizen who has been the victim of a bureaucrat or a bureaucracy,” McCain said. “I said two years ago that the Fannie and Freddie thing was a very serious problem and we had to work on it. And I have always opposed greed of Wall Street and I know how we can fix this.”
McCain echoed his remarks later in the day during a speech in Tampa, saying, “Two years ago, I warned the administration and the Congress that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac needed to be fixed. It turns out, the problem was even bigger. They waited too long, and now we have a housing crisis, three bailouts with taxpayers’ money, and a financial crisis.”
In both appearances, McCain was referring to his 2006 decision to sign on to a Republican-led regulatory overhaul of the mortgage-financing firms, which both went through multibillion-dollar accounting scandals earlier in the decade. The occasion that prompted McCain’s involvement was the release of a 340-page report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight that concluded that Fannie Mae had manipulated earnings and violated basic accounting principles. It describes an “arrogant and unethical corporate culture” in which executives were more concerned about their bonuses than meeting the company’s housing mission.
The findings, based on a 27-month investigation and resulting in a $400-million fine paid to the government, prompted McCain to join other critics and call for more scrutiny of Fannie and its sibling, Freddie Mac. “If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole,” McCain declared in a May 26, 2006, news release.
So it’s true that McCain spoke out — after a widely read report drew attention to chicanery at the firms. But the implication in McCain's remarks is that his remarks in 2006 were in some way a warning about the financial markets disaster that struck in 2008. That strikes us as quite a stretch.
First of all, congressional efforts to increase oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac extend back to the early 1990s, making McCain a latecomer to the debate. The regulatory efforts proved unsuccessful because of Congress’ complicated relationship with the firms, whose dominance in the home financing market makes their stability critical to the economy.
Fannie and Freddie are government-sponsored enterprises — a type of private corporation created by Congress for an explicit purpose; in this case, to lower the cost of capital in the housing market. Though critics have long maintained that the firms were too large and didn’t have enough capital to guard against risk, many lawmakers worried that stricter regulation would interfere with the firms’ role in the housing market. (The now-defunct Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, known as OFHEO, oversaw Fannie and Freddie but had limited regulatory authority.)
In his appearances, McCain tries to connect the accounting scandals with the broader meltdown in the mortgage markets. But the current crisis arose because banks and mortgage companies made risky “subprime” loans to people with poor credit histories that were then packaged into securities and sold to institutional investors. As interest rates rose and home prices began to fall, homeowners unable to refinance the loans or sell their properties began to default, unleashing a cascade effect through financial markets. That phenomenon had nothing to do with Fannie and Freddie’s internal problems; in fact, both firms were praised for cushioning the financial free fall and keeping the market afloat by spending billions of dollars to purchase subprime loans.
Even if the 2006 effort to strengthen oversight had succeeded, it’s debatable whether it would have averted the subprime crisis. The extent of the problems was not yet fully known, and it’s a leap of faith to suggest that regulators granted expanded power would have noticed a deterioration in Fannie and Freddie’s loan portfolios soon enough and would have sounded an alarm. Shaken by the extent of the subprime crisis, Congress and the Bush administration earlier this year completed a regulatory overhaul by combining OFHEO and the Federal Housing Finance Board into a new regulatory body, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Last weekend, the government took the additional step of placing the two firms into conservatorship — essentially a government takeover in which Treasury will extend up to $200-billion of support to the companies.
Barack Obama’s campaign responded to McCain’s remarks by labeling his desire for tougher oversight a myth. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor noted that McCain in 1992 voted against imposing stricter controls on Fannie and Freddie during Senate debate on a broader housing bill, and this year argued against providing big government bailouts in response to the crisis, whether for big lenders or homeowners.
We give McCain some credit for weighing in on problems surrounding Fannie Mae, even though he got involved after a comprehensive government report issued a loud alarm to anyone watching. However, his attempts to depict those efforts as some sort of early warning that could have lessened the current credit crisis just don't wash. All McCain was talking about then was the potential fallout of accounting troubles in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He didn't say anything about a freewheeling climate among creditors that had major financial institutions becoming badly leveraged on bad loans. We rule his claim Barely True.
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