Comrade McCain

I watched the beginning of tonight's debate while exercising. At this point, Obama's strategy is obvious: 1) Play the cool, thoughtful guy 2) Be forceful on foreign policy 3) Make McCain catch you and don't be baited into insults. If doing those three things makes for a successful debate for Obama, then he did his job.

Obviously tired of being tagged as Bush Jr., McCain busted out with a proposed a program that would buy mortgages from homeowners facing financial problems and replace those mortgages with new, fixed-rate mortgages. His campaign said it would cost roughly $300 billion. I'm assuming that this is on top of the $850,000,000,000 that both he and Obama gave the thumbs up to last week. McCain made the point that this thing was his idea.

Note that on March 26th McCain was singing a completely different tune and last week his veep nominee said, "Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem so, government, .... get out of the way and let the private sector and our families grow and thrive and prosper." I guess that's except when your candidate is desperate. Talk about your flip-flopping.

More importantly, one has to ask Mr. McCain whether or not he truly believes in capitalism or central government planning of the economy. On one hand, he thinks that the free market will lower health care costs and improve quality, but on the other that that it won't fix the financial markets. So, if he were president and a lot of hospitals began to shut down, would he have the government buy them and run the health care system?

It amazes me how quickly the republicans run from their principles. Bush was all about choosing judges that strictly interpret the constitution, then looks for as many ways as possible to circumvent it in the war on terror. McCain espouses free markets, until he's behind in an election. Idiots.