Krauthammer Blames The Economy

When will these conservative pundits admit the truth and just come out and say that McCain fucked up? Obama has so far received over 65 million votes, 8 million more than his opponent and counting. 364 electoral votes and counting. And yet the so called conservative pundits can't bear to give credit where credit is due. Any excuse to exonerate the Maverick.

Charles Krauthammer blames the economy.

In the excitement and decisiveness of Barack Obama's victory, we forget that in the first weeks of September, John McCain was actually ahead. Then Lehman collapsed, and the financial system went off a cliff.

To be fair, Krauthammer does go on to mention other factors that caused McCain's demise, including the choice of Palin, and trying to steal the "change" message - real change because of McCain's and Simple Sarah's maverickiness. And he does say that Obama ran a "brilliant" campaign. But that's secondary to Krauthammer's main message which more than half his column is devoted to, blaming the economy subliminally by suggesting that if the market didn't tank and banks didn't collapse, things could have turned out differently.

We'll never know. But the major difference is that while John McCain was playing political stunt du jour, Barack Obama was thoughtful, sought advice from experts and multi tasked - he didn't have to pretend to suspend his campaign in order to deal with a crisis.

If anyone or anything beat John McCain besides Barack Obama, it was John McCain, not only because of his choice of Sarah Palin in an attempt to galvanize a base that would never vote Democratic anyway, but in the one line that Krauthammer fails to mention in his column: "The fundamentals of our economy are still strong."

With that one sentence, McCain showed that he wasn't in touch with what was going on, that the economy was not his strong suit, and that he thought it better to try and calm the populous with a false line instead of giving them "straight talk." The non-suspension suspension of his campaign (which Krauthammer also mentions) to "solve the economic crisis" that he didn't believe was a crisis to begin with, only to go to Washington, not participate in the talks in a leadership role and quite possibly derailing the progress that had been made before he got there - was only exacerbated by the botched Letterman debacle. He should have given Letterman some "straight talk" instead of lying to a man with a nightly broadcast.

Then the Maverick who said he would "make famous" the seekers of pork with his Almighty Sharpie™ voted yea for an $850 billion bailout bill (renamed a "rescue" bill to make it more palatable for us taxpaying schmucks) when he probably knew it could have passed without his support. He could have made a statement and separated himself from his opponent by voting against it and using that Sharpie like Leonard Bernstein used a baton. Instead, he holstered his mavericky magic marker, voted for the bill and then railed against Obama as a socialist for voting in favor of the same bill!

Everyone was looking at John McCain 2008 through John McCain 2000 glasses. They wanted McCain 2000, but that McCain shriveled away a long time ago. That McCain was replaced by the 90% Bush appeaser when he realized that McMaverick wasn't going to win him any elections. The economy didn't beat John McCain, it just exposed him for the loose cannon, shoot from the hip, political stunt politician he has become.

But then Krauthammer ends with this last line - a eulogy, if you will - for Johnny Maverick:

But before our old soldier fades away, it is worth acknowledging that McCain ran a valiant race against impossible odds. He will be - he should be - remembered as the most worthy presidential nominee ever to be denied the prize.

Really - a valiant race? The most worthy presidential nominee ever to be denied the prize? I know of one particular Nobel Prize winner that might disagree with you, Chuck. If ever someone was "denied" something that was probably rightfully his, it was Al Gore.

And as far as "a valiant race" is concerned, when you resort to fear mongering by calling your opponent a socialist, claim he's "palling around with terrorists", and tacitly approve of 527 groups running non-stop Reverend Wright ads for three straight days before the election, that's not valiant, it's cowardly. Not condemning that kind of hateful rhetoric is far off the bravery meter in my book.