IBD - E.J. DIONNE JR.
John McCain made a dramatic gesture to solve a problem that didn't exist. He pledged to take politics out of a process that has been surprisingly bipartisan. And he tried to scrub a presidential debate that had nothing to do with negotiations over a Wall Street bailout that he proposed to save.
McCain's sudden intervention on Wednesday in Washington's deliberations over how to rescue the economy could not have been more out of sync with what was actually happening.
He lamented that "partisan divisions in Washington have prevented us from addressing our national challenges," and somberly declared:
"Now is our chance to come together."
But for days, bipartisanship has been the rule on both sides of this argument. Partisanship has been stunningly irrelevant. Republicans and Democrats alike were highly critical of President Bush's proposal to inject $700 billion into the financial system. Yet leaders of both parties were trying hard to negotiate an agreement with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader John Boehner normally fight about everything. But on Wednesday they issued a joint statement noting that "working in a bipartisan manner, we have made progress." Pelosi and Boehner have been models of bipartisanship without any intervention by McCain.
And if McCain had actually been following the negotiations closely, he would have known that there have been times this week when Senate Democrats worried that Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, was too chummy with Paulson and too eager for a deal. Senate Democrats put out their own proposal partly to make sure their concerns were taken into account.
Frank did not need McCain to make him bipartisan, and he grumbled about Thursday's White House meeting that included McCain and Barack Obama as a mere "photo op."
Bush's address to the nation included uncharacteristic concessions to his critics on the bailout bill. He said he wanted to "ensure that taxpayers are protected," which, one hopes, means they will get shares in the companies they rescue. He endorsed oversight mechanisms his administration's original proposal lacked, and signaled that he accepted an idea his negotiators had resisted fiercely: limiting what the financial titans who got us into this mess could pocket from this enormous package.
If you doubt that McCain's moves were about rescuing his candidacy rather than our economy, consider how his proposal to suspend the presidential campaign came about.
McCain had just gotten off a phone call with Obama on Wednesday in which they discussed a joint statement of principles and McCain broached the idea of suspending the campaign. Obama said he'd think about it, but McCain didn't give him time. To Obama's surprise, McCain appeared on television shortly after the conversation to announce his unilateral pause in campaigning and a call for postponing Friday's debate. This is bipartisanship?
As for Thursday's White House meeting, Bush's lieutenants had been in discussions with McCain's people during the day on Wednesday. Obama didn't get his invitation from the president until around 7:30 p.m., just an hour and a half before Bush's speech. This was an active intervention by Bush on behalf of McCain to box Obama into the photo op. Again, was this bipartisan?
The simple truth is that Washington is petrified about this crisis and will pass something. There are dark fears floating through the city that foreign investors, particularly the Chinese, might begin to pull their billions out of our system.
Scarier than the bad mortgages are those unregulated credit default swaps that the financier George Soros has been warning about. There are $45 trillion of those esoteric instruments sloshing around the global financial system. They were invented as a hedge against defaults on debts, but even the financial smart guys don't fully understand their impact or how to price their real value.
Fear is a terrible motivator for careful legislating, but it's a heck of a way to bring about a lot of bipartisanship. McCain jumped into this game in the fourth quarter. Many of the players on the field, caked in mud and exhausted but determined as they approach the goal line, wonder why this new would-be quarterback has suddenly appeared in their midst.
McCain could yet play a constructive role by blessing a deal that is anathema to so many in his party and easing the political pain. But his intervention was less a presidential act than the tactical ploy of a man worried that his chances of becoming president might be slipping away.
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