A Case of Pot Calling Kettle "Socialist"

Brokaw was especially deft at drawing at McCain's own brand of "socialism" (which is not actual socialism, as practiced in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, or Bolivia, where the government controls the means of production. Stop me before I go all book learnin'!).

First, Brokaw tosses out a seeming softball, asking McCain to gloss the S-word:

MR. BROKAW: But there, there is this continuing use...

SEN. McCAIN: ...I feel that...

MR. BROKAW: ...of the phrase "socialism." How would you describe the $700 billion bailout that has the United States government buying shares in American banks, in effect nationalizing those banks to a degree, and even your own mortgage plan of spending $300 billion to buy bad mortgages from banks, having taxpayers who have done the responsible thing, in effect, subsidize people who've done the dumb or wrong thing?

SEN. McCAIN: Because we are in a financial crisis of monumental proportions. The role of government is to intervene when a nation is in crisis. A homeowner's loan corporation was instituted in the Great Depression. They went out and they bought people's mortgages, and, over time, people were able, then, to pay back those mortgages. And the Treasury actually made some money.

OK, fair enough, McCain does not want to go on record that a significant number of Americans were irresponsible and bought homes they knew (or should have been adult enough to know) they couldn't afford. Straight Talk is so Y2K.

But, then, Brokaw seems to let the matter drop, only to come back around to the nasty S-word (which is a word and not a "phrase") a few questions later [with my comments/imagined internal monologue in brackets and boldface]:

MR. BROKAW: Let me ask you quickly about your $300 billion bailout of, of mortgages.

SEN. McCAIN: Hm. [Uh-oh.]

MR. BROKAW: Some people have said, look, if there's a homeowner out there who's done the irresponsible thing... [Can we please have more of the media and politicians calling out Americans as "irresponsible," "dumb," and "wrong" when we have in fact behaved that way? That's straight talk, my friends.]

SEN. McCAIN: Mm-hmm.

MR. BROKAW: ...and a bank is looking at that foreclosure and saying, "Hey, I don't have to work this out. I can just get the government to pick it up," why should a taxpayer in Waterloo, Iowa, or in Akron, Ohio, have to subsidize somebody who has done the dumb, wrong thing? ["EXACTLY!" shouted I to the webcast. Can we please have some Republicans who think that government is not the answer to every problem in American life? So we could have an actual debate on both parties' policies, rather than a debate solely about one party's candidate and his policies?]

SEN. McCAIN: Well, in simplest terms, if their neighbor next door throws the keys in the living room floor and leaves, then the value of their home is going to dramatically decrease as well. [Indeed, so-called abandonments "by throwing of keys" are the number 3 cause of home loss in my home state of Ohio, after foreclosure and fire. Usually, though, it's the kitchen or, most likely, garage.] And again, this has been done before. As I said, during the Great Depression and... [Oh my Lord, he is not going to use FDR as an example of what Republicans should do now!!!!!!!]

MR. BROKAW: And that's when Republicans called it socialism under FDR. [Dude, if you did not see that one coming, how are you gonna, like, stop us from having wars, and stuff?]

SEN. McCAIN: Well, look, in the Great Depression, there were some things that worked and some things that didn't work. [Most of them didn't.] But for the government to do nothing in the face of a massive crisis of proportions that we have not seen, [So the current crisis is worse than the Great Depression? I didn't know unemployment had topped 20 percent. And where are the Okies?] I mean, it's hard for us to imagine how, in, in retrospect, how serious the Great Depression was [Actually, World War II worked. Not to give you ideas . . .], but the fact is that Senator Obama, by the way, opposes that, that [I can hear the ad voice-over now: "Who is Barack Obama? He opposes the Great Depression."]; and I want to use some of the $750 billion to go and buy those mortgages and that, I think, will stabilize the market. [Since the bailout passed, the markets have been nothing but stable. You can count on them to go up or down by several hundred points on a daily basis -- that's reliability!] It's not the only thing that needs to be done, but I think it's a vital first step so Americans can realize the American dream. [So socialism is okay, in this instance, since it's necessary as a "vital first step" for the American dream. And Obama opposes that socialism . . . but he's probably still bad anyway since by inference he also opposes the American dream. Hey, it's not like we're going to be Sweden, with the government installing saunas in everybody's house.]

MR. BROKAW: I stop...

SEN. McCAIN: And by the way, this is primary residences. [So my 12 other homes would not be eligible.]

MR. BROKAW: Yeah. [Just stop. Really.]

SEN. McCAIN: There's a lot of circumstances that, yeah. [Okay. Yeah, I'll . . . Okay. Yeah. I'll stop.]

Just to be clear: 2 of my grandparents were/are lifelong Dems who loved FDR; 2 of my grandparents were/are lifelong Republicans who hated FDR, and became Republicans because they were outraged at his various efforts (successful or not) to expand the scope and power of the federal government. And they are far from the only ones.

So McCain should seriously have seen that one coming.

Don't you love as well the false choice between "socialism" (FDR/Great Depression-style) or otherwise doing nothing, which is the only alternative McCain mentions? Of course, Brokaw was trying to highlight the hypocrisy in throwing the S-word at Obama when McCain's centerpiece proposal is from the FDR playbook (and denounced by his own party with said S-word). Makes you long for the straight talk of Mitt Romney . . .

Good to know, anyway, that Obama opposes socialism. Somebody tell Palin!