Straight Talk, No Chaser

At the dawning of one of the worst financial crises in this country's history, as we stood at the precipice of despair, Sen. John McCain shrugged and said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong."

Afterward, Pepcid, Tums and Rolaids futures shot up on Wall Street.

Later, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, known for his calm and steady demeanor, appeared on TV looking like a horse that had been "rode hard and put away wet."

I don't know which was scarier: watching the panic in Greenspan's eyes over the collapse of investment banks or the vacancy sign in McCain's eyes as he channeled Herbert Hoover.

You will recall that former President Hoover, an economic wunderkind like McCain, claimed in 1929, after bank failures and job layoffs, that "the fundamental business of the country, that is the production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis."

Hoover, who defeated Democrat Al Smith, then ushered in the Great Depression.

John McCain, running a Hooveresque campaign during distressed times, is flirting with disaster. He is so desperate to reach the White House after numerous failed attempts that he is offering talking points instead of leadership.

"Whatever you say, say it with conviction," Mark Twain used to say. McCain overstates the point to a fault. If elected, it's not just Republicans who will bear the brunt of his strongest and strangest convictions. All of us will.

McCain is a tribute to his party, notorious for letting the Fat Cats get their deregulated fill at the expense of average working-class Americans, who are left with nothing but pocket change to show for their partisanship.

If George W. Bush is our emperor with no clothes, John McCain could be our emperor with no clue.

Not since Dubya told us to go on a post-9/11 shopping spree have we heard such hokum passing for sound judgment from Washington. The fundamentals of our economy are strong?

Was it not long ago that McCain's key economic adviser, Phil Gramm, was chastised publicly for claiming Americans were experiencing a mental recession and whining about losing their jobs, homes, stocks and bonds?

Have they no decency?

John McCain, having successfully fooled some of the people some of the time throughout his campaign, dared to fool all of the people all of the time about the economy and then was caught.

Rather than admit to his erroneous and irrational exuberance, McCain fell back on politics. First, he called for a 9/11-style commission to study the problem. Next, he assailed the Securities and Exchange Commission's chairman and called for his head. Then, just to show how much like Bush he really is, McCain offered to expand government by creating a new agency. Last, but not least, he blamed Democrats, who haven't been the majority party for all of Republican Bush's two terms.

The people who surround Dubya may be calculating, Machiavellian and quite possibly even criminal, but at least they are bright. There are few signs of intelligent life in the McCain campaign on economic or foreign policy matters. In other words, the important stuff.

Our country wasn't having a bad day. We experienced one of the worst weeks since the Great Depression.

Picture the world's last remaining superpower standing naked before the whole world holding a tin cup for a fig leaf. We were naked because our financial laundry was hung out to dry for everyone — friend and foe alike — to see. It's a wonder the banking sector wasn't outsourced to India. We're just lucky Sarah Palin didn't put up AIG on eBay.

In one of our darkest hours, John McCain didn't give us any straight talk. He offered us a chicken in every pot.

NOTE TO READERS: The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation contacted me about the use of the word "tranny" in my column last week. While acknowledging that the term has some common use in the GLBT community, GLAAD considers it a slur. I regret the use and apologize for the offense. I stand by everything else in the column. — RCL

Rhonda Chriss Lokeman (RCLCreators@kc.rr.com) is a contributing editor to The Kansas City Star. To find out more about Rhonda Chriss Lokeman and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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