John McCain
-Headline of the day-
"Frank: Republicans 'winced' when McCain was mentioned in meeting."
Remember how the big reverse-socialist redistribution of wealth... Dang, I keep doing that! I meant to say "the Wall Street bailout"... was so damned important that John McCain had to freak out, drop everything, and run off to Washington to straighten it all out himself? Remember that?
Well, it turns out his help wasn't anything anyone of either party was looking forward to. According to the report, "Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that 'nobody mentioned McCain' during the several-hour-long meeting on the $700 billion market rescue plan, other than Frank and that his Republican colleagues 'winced' when he did."
"He’s been irrelevant to the process. He remains to be," said Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee. "I was afraid that his dropping in here, like Andy Kaufman’s Mighty Mouse -- 'here I am to save the day' -- I thought that would slow things down. I didn’t see any sign of our Republican colleagues paying any attention to him whatsoever." Observers gave Frank 10 points for being able to sneak an obscure Saturday Night Live reference into the comment.
McCain, who's been the most absent member of the senate, reportedly spent an hour trying to find the meeting room and another forty minutes looking for a place to hang his coat, checking the floor plans on the walls for "You Are Here" arrows. McCain was also reportedly stopped from tipping a congressional page by Joe Lieberman. (Politico, via reddit)
-Not a quick study-
Also from Politico; it turns out that in his rush to drop everything and freak out, McCain forgot a little step. As of this morning, McCain hadn't read the Bush administration's proposal for their big reverse-socialist redistribution of wealth; AKA "The Wall Street bailout."
"I have not had a chance to see it in writing,” McCain told a Cleveland TV station. “I have to examine it." Here's the fun part -- it's three freakin' pages. I know Grampy's attention wanders in his old age, but you'd think he'd be able to stay focused on a proposal that's barely any longer than a Bazooka Joe comic.
I guess we can assume he scanned it while wandering the halls. (Politico)
-Quote of the day-
"It's not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number."
-Unnamed Treasury Spokeswoman on the in-depth number-crunching it took to come up with $700 billion for the BRSRoW, AKA TWSB.
The financial experts are on the job. Don't you feel better now? (Forbes, via Political Wire)
