Tuesday, September 16, 2008

McCain Blinks   [Jonah Goldberg]

I think there's something unseemly to scoring the financial crisis on political terms, but that's apparently how everyone else is responding too.

I saw the beginning of The Today Show this morning. Their set-up piece (by Andrea Mitchell, fwiw) made it very clear McCain is on the defensive on the economy again. Earlier in the day he said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." Obama seized on that, ridiculed McCain, cut an ad attacking him for saying it etc. By later in the day McCain changed his tune to "the fundamentals are threatened, the economy is in crisis." (I'm quoting from memory) And in this morning's interview with McCain, Matt Lauer had the Arizona senator on his heels to defend his remarks.

McCain shouldn't apologize for his initial statements. Indeed, McCain should stop being defensive about his political instincts in areas like this. Obama wants this to be about "the economy." McCain's instinct is to make this about leadership in a crisis. That's the right instinct. Obama sees nothing wrong with screaming that the sky is falling during a stock-market meltdown in order to score political points. McCain's impulse was to argue for calm at the moment when it is needed.

McCain's response to Obama's attack shouldn't be to ratchet-up his own panic language to keep up with Obama, but to scold Obama for making the situation worse. The narrative of the moment should be McCain is the grown-up, Obama the hot head. There's a thin line between hope and fear, and Obama is crossing it.

McCain needs to be the nothing to fear but fear itself guy to Obama's "it's time to panic" guy. Bonus: That happens to be the truth.

09/16 07:38 AMShare