Bush Calls Obama Back to Washington
By Matthew Weaver on September 25, 2008 at 12:21 AM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs, George Bush, John McCain
Wednesday’s news came fast and furious. Where to begin… …or end?
Senator McCain surprised everyone mid-afternoon with announcement that he was halting his campaign, suspending ads, requesting delay in Friday’s debate, and returning to Washington tomorrow to help address the nation’s financial crisis. Senator Obama quickly claimed “me too” but only in timing. Obama refused to suspend his campaign, return to DC, or reschedule the debate.
In his petulance, Obama made a stunning gaffe in refusing to respond to the financial crisis and return to DC, saying ‘if they [Congress] need me, they’ll call me.’ In what has to be the quote of the day, if not the election, Obama said:
“Apparently, this was something that, you know, he was more decisive about…”—Barack Obama speaking about John McCain action to stop campaigning.
The contrast in leadership between McCain and Obama is stark: McCain rolls up his sleeves and says ‘let’s get something done.’ while Obama says ‘call me if you need me.’
Yes, Obama went on to explain:
“I believe that we should continue to have the debate,” he said. “I think that it makes sense for us to present ourselves before the American people, to talk about the nature of the problems that we’re having in our financial system, to talk about how it relates to our global standing in the world, what implications it has for our national security, how it relates to critical questions, like the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“We’ve both got big planes. We’ve painted our slogans on the sides of them. They can get us from Washington, D.C., to Mississippi fairly quickly.”—Barack Obama as quoted by Shailagh Murray in the Washington Post.
Incredible! Obama chose to campaign rather than address the nation’s crisis.
Sen. Lindsey Graham summed up the challenge on Fox News’s “America’s Election HQ”:
“We don’t want a debate! We want a solution. We’ve got 40 days to debate. We’ve been begging this guy to debate us for six months now. What we need is for the Congress to answer the call of Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke and Warren Buffett and every other smart person to not allow a financial PEARL HARBOR to happen.”
Host: Senator Obama has suggested that a president needs to be able to do a number of things at the same time …. like have a debate for example and be able to have his finger on the pulse of what is going on in Washington. Is he right about that?
Sen. Graham: I would think that if the president were overseas right now and talking to a foreign leader, they would get on a plane and come back home because the country is experiencing a financial crisis. If either one of these people were president, and they were overseas talking about some foreign policy matter, I hope they would have the good judgment to jump on a plane and come back to the United States and call an emergency session of the Congressional leaders to avoid what Warren Buffett calls a ‘financial Pearl Harbor’. That to me is what we need to do.
We have 40 days left to debate. We may not have but a few days left to protect American savings and financial institutions from collapse, and after the two days you’ve seen here in Congress of nothing but posturing, we’re running out of time.
Well, President Bush did finally call Senator Obama and invite him to join everyone at the White House Thursday to discuss the financial crisis. It is absolutely stunning that Obama, a candidate for president, failed his 3 a.m. moment, requiring an invitation to return to Washington rather than, like McCain, realizing that the moment required leadership and action.
Finally, Wednesday evening President Bush addressed the nation (transcript) in sobering language:
“We are in the midst of a serious financial crisis…
…our entire economy is in danger.”
Even worse:
The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence, and major sectors of America’s financial system are at risk of shutting down.
The government’s top economic experts warn that, without immediate action by Congress, America could slip into a financial panic and a distressing scenario would unfold.
Yes, President Bush addressed the nation in a prime time to say that the economy was near collapse (and that his eight years as president were ending in complete and utter failure.) The budget surpluses in 2000 were replaced with an economy today on the brink of a depression.
Thus,
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