Pin Tail On Donkey

IBD Editorials ^ | October 8, 2008

[Kaslin]

The Debate: John McCain rightly laid the blame for the economic crisis on Fannie and Freddie, and the blame for that on the Democrats. But he missed opportunities and left much too much on the podium.

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When moderator Tom Brokaw opened the Nashville debate by asking both candidates, "What's the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people out of the economic ruin?" Sen. McCain should have responded by saying the first thing we should do is not put in power those who caused the crisis in the first place.

Instead McCain, at the advice of those with a political death wish, trotted out more federal intervention in the free market by proposing a $300 billion federal program to buy up the bad mortgages Democrats forced banks to issue.

With the next questions, however, McCain started to place his aim where it should be. Asked about the rescue package, he said, "One of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire, was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." He pointed out, "They're the ones that, with the encouragement of Sen. Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back."

He pointed out that the Democrats were whistling past the graveyard on Fannie and Freddie while pocketing political contributions. He said, finally, in a national forum, that "Senator Obama was the second-highest recipient of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac money in history." But then he forgot about the issue.