McCain's Folly: Firing SEC Chairman

McCain boldly stood up last week, a day or so after saying the fundamentals of the economy was sound and then correcting himself to say the fundamentals were to be defined as the American worker -- who can apparently be worked to death, denied health care benefits, find their job outsourced tomorrow, and otherwise abused by his or her employers and government and still be the relied on to provide trillions for war and bailouts -- he decided to call for the head of the head of the Security and Exchange Commission because of the financial turmoil. 

Yes, the American worker is now the moral equivalent of the abused spouse to the Bushies, Republicans, and and their fat cat cronies. 

Unfortunately, there has been loud guffawing from people who actually know something about the SEC and it's ability to regulate

"He chose the wrong scapegoat," said James Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University who is not related to the SEC chairman.

"It shows a profound ignorance of something (McCain) ought to know about being in Washington, and that is the limited regulatory authority of the SEC."

Even the Wall Street Journal dissed McCain:

The Wall Street Journal, known for its conservative editorial board, said McCain had shown he did not understand the financial crisis.

"This assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also unpresidential," it said in an editorial. "In a crisis, voters want steady, calm leadership, not misleading answers that will do nothing to help." 

President George W. Bush, who appointed Cox, stood with the SEC chairman during a televised speech at the White House on Friday, a clear sign of support.

Cox, a former Republican congressman, has said he plans to step down when the Bush administration ends in January 2009.

But finally the senator gets it after being schooled in front of the whole world by journalists about the job he's supposedly planning to take on in 4 months.

Of course, Obama needs advice at times too, but he consults his advisors in private and doesn't often need to correct himself in public.  In fact, Obama seeks advice before crises start.  One of his advisors on the economy is Paul Volcker who helped the US recover from the economic crisis of the early 1980s.  Others dare shown in the photo to the right.

I saw a video the other day in which relating the measures seeking greater regulation of the financial sector that Senator Obama had pressed in the chamber even years ago to keep the kind of collapses we're seeing from happening.

Some have praised McCain's call for the firing of Cox, but they are mostly on the campaign team or Republicans and praise him for an astute pull of the wool over the eyes of the voting public.  Others say he now needs to get back to security matters, supposedly his strong point.  Look for the Bush administation to try to gin up our new Cold War.  Oops Too late (See Condi Rice, last week).  Or loose an al Qaeda tape.  Oops too late (See new al Qaeda tape that the Bush administration assures us they tried to keep secret), or something possibly worse if McCain's poll numbers keep falling.

tags: politics  financial crisis  republicans  mccain  obama  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit