I don't know about you, but I've been doing a lot of head scratching lately. Being a conservative, and watching the recent financial fiasco, I'm left to wonder: just who is John McCain listening to? Now, I've noticed that older folk get a little hard of hearing. I watched it happen to my Dad and even now, at my relatively young age, I'm noticing the beginnings of it. But is everyone on McCain's staff the same age?
Watching President Bush, his administration, and the mainstream media (MSM) over the past week or so, I've concluded that they were all on the same page. There is only one solution for our failing economy and wall street woes: a bailout at tax payers expense. Oddly enough there was no discussion of a Plan A or B, let alone a Plan C. There's just one possible answer for this predicament: do the $700 billion dollar bailout or life as we know it ends. For some reason McCain heard that option, he supported it.
However, reading a conservative magazine and a couple of conservative blogs, and listening occasionally to conservative talk radio, it became apparent that there were plenty of other options to the proposed bailout. One option was to drop the capital gains tax for two years and flood the market with an enormous amount of cash. The experts did say that the market needed and infusion of cash, so that probably would have worked... without using tax payers money.
Why didn't this idea gain any traction? Well, the MSM didn't report it on TV or print it in newspapers. I'm assuming they didn't report it because of the continual feud between the MSM and conservative thinkers. So, an idea that might have solved our financial crisis without forcing the nation to take a socialistic step, is sadly lost to us.
Now, here's the most disappointing thing to me. John McCain courted conservatives saying he had our back. He hinted at this position by selecting Sarah Palin, which did satisfy a lot of us conservatives who really had no one to rally around until then. All that is fine and dandy, but with recent actions by the McCain camp leaves conservatives wondering: just who is John McCain listening to? Well, it's pretty obvious that he's not listening to conservatives. He simply supported the bailout plan discussed by the MSM. He supported President Bush's administration, even though most American's opposed it.
So what do we learn from all of this? McCain is an avowed moderate. He doesn't, and never has, seriously considered conservative thinking. His solutions are the same as those conjured up by big government intelligensia. It's sad really. He was given a gift... a real opportunity to offer something new and different... to take a stand as a "straight talker"... show a dynamically creative way to solve our financial crisis... and to set him apart from Obama's camp and Washington. But instead he obviously listened to the MSM and ended up exposing his age. McCain is hard of hearing, especially when it comes to listening to solutions offered by conservative thinkers.
Being a Basicguy and all, I'm probably not smart enough to comprehend McCain's greater plan. But I do know this, if McCain continues to be hard of hearing of conservative thought, conservatives will be hard of hearing of his... regardless of how many times he throws Governor Palin out there to satisfy them. It's not working. Unfortunately, McCain's aging hearing problem will guarantee a loss of more than hearing in November and carve a path for a disastrous Obama presidency.
McCain, where are your hearing aides?
