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A Profound Contempt

It’s a beautiful thing to see the Wall Street Journal rip into John McCain:

John McCain has made it clear this week he doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does. But on Thursday, he took his populist riffing up a notch and found his scapegoat for financial panic — Christopher Cox, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Mr. McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It’s also un-Presidential.

The editorial basically echoes Obama’s speech in Eli’s post—McCain is panicking, thrashing around, looking for someone to hit. And even the conservative press is criticizing him for it.

McCain accused Cox and the SEC of allowing naked short-selling. The WSJ slaps him for his obvious distortion:

Take “naked” shorting, in which an investor sells a stock short — betting that it will fall in price — without first borrowing the shares he is selling from an investor who owns them. The SEC has never condoned the practice, and since 2005 it has clamped down on short selling in any stock that shows evidence of naked shorting. The SEC further tightened its rules against naked shorting just hours before Mr. McCain excoriated Mr. Cox for doing nothing.

McCain’s (and Palin’s) obvious, easily debunked lies show a profound contempt for the American public and its interest in—and ability to apprehend—the truth.

Go get ‘em, WSJ.

Comments (4)

1

Yes, McCain sucks. But this is bs. Listen to this (http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=363) to learn about how the SEC "cracked down" on naked short-selling. The Wall Street Journal is lying, like usual.

Posted by aaron | September 19, 2008 3:49 PM
2

You know the Republicans are in trouble when Rupert Murdoch starts ripping into them...

Posted by michael strangeways | September 19, 2008 3:50 PM
3

Republican voters have a profound contempt for themselves. They don't care if McCain lies.

They will elect people who shred the constitution, wage permanent war, pursue preemptive war, torture people who they hold in captivity without trial, accelerate global warming, and court economic catastrophe all so they can have lower taxes.

Posted by contempt | September 19, 2008 6:35 PM
4

Cox is guilty of not pushing through regs on hedge funds. Short selling and sapping liquidity, that's the hedge funds. Greenspan let the bubble continue despite many, many warnings. Banks had appraisal divisions within their mortgage lender divisions. Lehman gave out 5.5 billion in bonuses last Christmas. McCain has no clue what he's talking about. Democrats need an all-out assault right now. Faux News and WSJ are going to starting spinning this as both parties are responsible. That's somewhat true, but the Repubs virtually controlled all three branches 2001-2006.

Posted by left coast | September 20, 2008 12:46 PM

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