Beating Around the Bush Bailout

With leaders such as Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, what's there to worry about?

Did you see them in their highly anticipated first debate? Didn't you feel reassured that the nation's financial crisis soon will be in good hands?

Not!

Instead of a demonstration of their leadership qualities, we saw two men keeping their fingers to the wind.

On the Wall Street bailout proposal, what we got was proof that neither candidate is qualified to lead us out of this crisis.

What we saw were two typical politicians, long on rhetoric and very short on details, two men who obviously are terrified of taking strong positions on something that easily could backfire on them, especially something as important as this $700 billion question!

That may be very politically astute, but it's not leadership!

It makes you feel like shouting at your TV, "Will the real leader please stand up?"

If either of them had stood firmly for or against the bailout, if either had explained why it is or isn't necessary, if either had encouraged his followers and fellow members of Congress to follow whichever position he was espousing, then we could have identified a leader who perhaps could "lead" us out of this mess.

Instead, Obama and McCain told us that they hoped to be able to support the bailout package — once they read the fine print.

Oh, yes, we also heard Obama giving us more of his meaningless poetic rhetoric, telling us that it's about Main Street, not Wall Street … blah, blah, blah; and we heard McCain using his tired one-liners. But neither spoke to the American people with humility or candor about the tough times ahead. Both candidates missed a great opportunity to rise above the other, not only in the polls but also in displaying the leadership qualities that we expect to see in our next president.

In fact, their failure to lead is partially responsible for Monday's nose dive in the stock market — the largest point drop in Wall Street history!

If they had taken a stronger stand Friday, perhaps the bailout bill would not have been rejected by the House of Representatives Monday.

Why did the stock market have to plummet before these so-called leaders realized that they have to lead? Both McCain and Obama are partly responsible. First, each failed to deliver more of his respective party's members to vote for the bailout. Second, they allowed their own allies in Congress to engage in a finger-pointing and bickering fight that hurt the U.S. economy.

Now the McCain and Obama camps are blaming each other for the failure of the bailout bill. The issue has been so disgustingly politicized that you hear Republican spinners blaming Obama for not getting more Democrats to vote for the bailout bill and Democrats blaming McCain for not delivering more Republican votes.

In fact, they are all correct because we not only have a financial crisis but also a leadership crisis. Dancing around important issues — that's what they do best.

The Republicans accuse Obama of never using the word "victory" when he speaks about Iraq, and the Democrats accuse McCain of never using the words "middle class" when he speaks about the U.S. economy, but there are other key words, such as "illegal immigration," that both candidates are cowardly avoiding.

The first debate was supposed to be about foreign policy and national security, yet Latin America was totally ignored. We didn't hear a word about U.S.-Mexican efforts to fight drug trafficking and crime along our southern border or about the pending free trade agreement with Colombia or about Hugo Chavez's efforts to turn the whole hemisphere against the United States.

McCain and Obama will have two more debates and just a few more weeks to stand up and show they are really ready to lead. Will they help break the congressional gridlock? If not, what does that say about the clout of the two men heading the Republican and Democratic tickets?

Will they show us how to get out of this mess, or will they keep putting their fingers to the wind?

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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