If McCain wins, we will ALL be punished. Except the greedy, I mean.

The point is, whether McCain would punish them or not (I frankly don't think Obama or Clinton would do much punishing either, I weep for John Edwards!)but SAYING so is what the voters want to hear.

This is why the right wing noise machine sounds to flat right now, they JUST DON"T GET IT AND NEVER WILL.

Maybe the punditry will finally notice the giant rift between conservatives and the GOP. For years I've been telling my republican senator and congressman that a) I'm a registered republican, b) I back it up with campaign donations, and c) I really don't appreciate (fill in the GOP betrayal du jour). Lately, I've donated to Democrats and written 2 letters for each donation. One letter tells the Democrat why a conservative is donating money across the aisle. The second tells my senator/representative that I gave money elsewhere and why.

Interestingly, I've received very good responses from some Democrats. The republican ones just repeat white house talking points, half of which are lies.

So, oddly, the Democrats are finding themselves the party most representative of liberals AND conservatives.

Tax Cuts!

War Forever!!

Extremism in Defense of The Privilege of Wealth Is No Vice!!!

Seriously, McCain just doesn't seem to get the support of the crazies and the true believers that hucksters and con men like Bush and Cheney have engendered. Certainly not the fawning support that he gets from most of the media. Maybe it's the campaign finance reform sins of his; maybe it's that he actually fought in a war (as opposed to dressing up and playing one on TV). McCain the apostate, er, populist just isn't the kind of guy the NRO crowd wants to have a beer with, regardless of any actual evidence of his opposition to the status quo.

This is the same guy who says tax cuts increase revenues. Patently false. Who is he pandering to, I wonder?

A week or so ago, I caught a clip of McCain passionately telling an audience that corporate taxes MUST be reduced. I couldn't help but catch the expressions of some ordinary-type supporters in the frame with him. They looked kind of confused and clapped with that dazed distraction you see in audiences that aren't sure whether they just saw something good or not.

I guess if you're dazzled by McCain's being a real war veteran and all that, you just kind of go along with his actual viewpoints.

The part I don't get is how people are pissed that they're reaping the bitter fruits of GOP economics, while at the same time, they'll howl to the moon if taxes are raised. At some point, the grown-ups are going to have to explain that all the shiny bells and whistles have to be paid for, rather than the bill being foisted on umpteen future generations.

The GOP's tax cuts for the rich didn't create an economic boom, so sorry -- but it was never intended to. All it was designed to do was get more money into the hands of the rich. It did further erode the middle class into near-oblivion, fattened up the already-rich, and added more people to the poor. The Banana Republicans are responsible for this economic debacle we find ourselves in, and America that went from strength to weakness pretty fast -- funny how waging a war of opportunity and cutting taxes weakens a country, eh?

And yet, whatever strong medicine the Democrats would be inclined to administer (and it's doubtful to me that they'd really be as bold as they need to be) will prompt resentment from the same people being screwed over by the GOP's economics to begin with.

Probably why they rely so heavily on scapegoating when the tough questions come up -- the political equivalent of "Hey, look over there!!" But even the old reactionary tropes of immigrant-bashing don't quite cut it, anymore, in the globalized GOP economy.

It took a Great Depression to shake Americans up enough to abandon supply-side theory for a few generations. Are we not yet in such a dire condition where people will realize that the GOP sold them crate after crate of snake oil?

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4218509&page=1

It's what every politician says during primary season. If McCain wins, he'll do exactly what Bush has done: give away the store. Give away the jobs. give away the benefits. He'll game the whole damn system, because at the end of the day, McCain is still a corporatist at heart. and no populist rhetorical tricks are gonna change that.

There's nothing I hate more than the tedious 'blame it on the rich' rhetoric. It's class warfare, counter-productive, and economically suspect.

Bush, with his weakening of regulations made it easier for the unscrupulous to be greedy. That calls for tightening regulation and regulatory oversight. Where were the regulators as mortgage companies blatantly mis-sold mortgages?

Yes, some people got rich by cheating and some people inheritied their wealth. But the bulk of wealthy Americans earned their fortunes through hard work. That's one of the strengths of America.

The mortgage crisis was spawned by a billion venal sins perpetrated from San Diego to Boston to Miami. Mortgage brokers, real estate brokers, heck even humble sellers and buyers of houses all showed their true greedy nature and did wrong.

Do we really have an appetite for punishing these many millions of people? Many have already been punished by going out of business or going bankrupt or losing their house.

I guess there is an argument that most of the greedy have been punished except for the Wall Street types who always manage to land on their feet. Do we know if anyone on Wall Street went broke or got fired behind this mess? Still the blame extends well beyond the confines provided by cheap class warfare.

In the mortgage "crisis" just like in every other area (global warming, invasion of foriegn countries, immigration, fiscal policy), we Americans have shown ourselves to be shortsighted and greedy, clutching at more stuff and damn the consequences. Someday, either we, or future generations will burn for our sins. I mean that quite literally and I say that as an atheist.