Time to review McCain's poor judgment on the economy

As McCain is forced into talking about the Republican economy that he helped create, it's time to look back at what he said in the past including what he failed to say even last week. By August of 2007 - just over one year ago - the Dow had already lost 1,000 points in one month as British lender Northern Rock sent the first big shock to the market. Northern Rock was nationalized after a run on the bank and everyone who was paying attention was introduced to the downside of subprime lending. They were a casualty of the subprime lending crisis when banks stopped lending to other banks. Even putting aside the McCain-Phil Gramm connections to the subprime lending crisis, it's hard to imagine that someone running for President of the United States would not notice the impending crisis coming to Wall Street. You would think that any serious candidate would quickly bring themselves up to speed on this issue, unless they didn't see it as a problem.

A few months later in November while on the campaign trail, McCain was asked about the economy and he responded "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should," McCain said. "I've got Greenspan's book." Again, it was obvious at this point where the economy was going as the housing crisis had already been dragging down the real estate market in many of the previously high flying areas around the US. US banks were starting to fall apart so anyone who was paying attention could not have missed the clouds building over Wall Street. For McCain, owner of 12 houses and friend of Phil Gramm, he was clueless. The crisis was so irrelevant, that he could jokingly dismiss it all and just say he would read Greenspan's book, as if a chief architect of the credit bubble would have the answers.

In April of 2008, roughly one month after the bailout of Bear Stearns, McCain told Bloomberg in an interview that the US had experienced "great progress economically" during the Bush years. He added a few words slightly more comforting than the Phil Gramm "whiners" comment but clearly he was promoting the same general idea. McCain somehow saw good news in an economy that has yet to generate positive jobs growth in 2008 and only hit the minimum 150,000 per month (to break even with incoming jobs) twice in 2007. For McCain, that's progress.

McCain can talk about his personal history as much as he likes and yes, we all appreciate his sacrifices for the US but he still does not understand the most important issue facing Americans today. If he had any understanding about the problem, he would have discussed it at the Republican convention instead of ignoring it all week.