Leadership

I don't think the Democratic candidates' speeches should be lost in favor of McCain's nutty "Time Out!" gambit. Joe Biden tore McCain a new one on national security today.

[T]ime and again, on the most critical national security issues of our time, John McCain's judgment was wrong. Right after the terrorists attacked us on 9-11, John responded by urging that we consider attacking countries other than Afghanistan, including Iraq, Iran and Syria. In the run up to the war in Iraq, John insisted that we would be greeted as liberators... that we didn't need a lot of troops... that victory was imminent.
Then, he said he wasn't worried about Afghanistan... that we would "muddle through"... and he declared Afghanistan to be "a remarkable success. In John's judgment, there is nothing to talk about with Tehran. And he has one idea for dealing with Russia: kick it out of the Group of Eight nations."

[...]

John McCain continues to insist, against all the evidence and all the facts, that Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism... and not the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan where the people who actually attacked us on 9-11 reside and are regrouping."

"John is more than wrong -- he is dangerously wrong. On a question so basic, so fundamental, so critical to our nation's security, we can't afford a Commander-in Chief so divorced from reality and from America's most basic national interests."

This is elemental. Afghanistan is now fifteen times more violent than Iraq, and it's becoming increasingly unlikely that we're going to get significant buy-in from the Pakistanis on stopping cross-border attacks, at least not with the current Administration in charge. The stakes are incredibly high and John McCain is out to lunch, without anything approaching a strategy.

Barack Obama had a speech today in Dunedin, FL, about the economy, and he laid the blame at the feet of the conservative philosophy of laissez-faire economics and mass deregulation.

Now, in the last few days, my opponent has decided to start talking tough about CEO pay. He's suddenly a hard-charging populist. And that's all well and good. But I sure wish he was talking the same way over a year ago, when I introduced a bill that would've helped stop the multi-million-dollar bonus packages that CEOs grab on their way out the door. Because he opposed that idea. I sure wish he joined me when I blew the whistle on the fired CEOs of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who tried to walk away with golden parachutes. I sure wish he felt the same outrage about CEO pay when his top economic advisor – who he calls a 'role model' – walked away with a $42 million package after being fired from Hewlett Packard. I sure wish he would change his current plan to give the average Fortune 500 CEO a $700,000 tax cut at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to pay their bills. That's what I'd like to hear.

You see, the John McCain you've heard from over the last few days is a lot different than the John McCain who's been in Washington for the last twenty-six years. He talks about getting tough on Wall Street now, but he's been against the common-sense rules and regulations that could've stopped this mess for decades. He says he'll take on the corporate lobbyists, but he put seven of the biggest lobbyists in Washington in charge of his campaign. And if you think those lobbyists are working day and night to elect my opponent just to put themselves out of business, well I've got a bridge to sell you up in Alaska.

The truth is, when my opponent first reacted to this crisis by saying that the fundamentals of our economy are strong, he didn't just make a mistake. He revealed an out-of-touch philosophy he's followed for decades in Washington – the idea that if we give more and more to those with the most, prosperity will trickle down to everyone else; the idea that no harm will be done if we let lobbyists shred consumer protections and fight against every regulation as unwise or unnecessary.

Well what we have seen over the last few weeks is nothing less than the final verdict on this failed philosophy. And I am running for President of the United States because the dreams of the American people cannot be endangered anymore.

John McCain didn't suspend his campaign today because he's some great leader. He suspended his campaign because he can't win the argument.