Can I be done now?

Ok, I am clearly sick of my duty to blog about McCain every week, but my whining has left little impression on my professor. I'm so sick of it that I wasn't even going to post this week's episode due to its hack-y nature. But I've decided to operate under the internet code of quantity over quality and post it anyway. As a way of making it up to you all, I should have some juicy Rezko trial stuff for you all tomorrow.

Thank you for your patience,
-m

There were no primaries this week and my "favorite candidate" was out of town visiting friends in the Mideast. Not that he was campaigning, no-o...

Good thing he wasn't, because otherwise the Dems and the media might have noticed that he doesn't know the difference between Shiites and Sunnis. Luckily, Sen. Lieberman whispered a correction in McCain's ear. That may be the closest we get to bi-partisanship: conservative Democrats picking up liberal Republicans after they slip on the banana that is tribal conflict.

Because of his trip, McCain missed the fallout from the Bear-Stearns debacle this weekend. I had spent the weekend studiously avoiding newspapers after a trip to Springfield left me legislatively exhausted. I came home, fired up the ol' computron and a friend of mine immediately bombarded me with news of financial calamity.

Here's some of the apocalyptic talk I got as I was trying to wind down:

"I recommend investing in bottled water, ammunition and antibiotics…"

"Duct tape. Buy duct tape."

"Just want everyone to get through the dust bowl okay, what with the inevitable descent into anarchy."

Let's be real though; it's not all hyperbole:
$3.5 billion company + $1.2 billion worth of office space + "risk" covered by the Federal Reserve Bank = $236 million.

McCain supported the Fed bailout, but said he hoped it wouldn't be necessary: "After the savings and loan crisis (of the 1980s), I think we all knew the government had to act. But we wasted billions."

This seems familiar…oh, right. Because I just blogged about it last month. Try this exercise. Google "mccain" + "savings and loan crisis"

I'll tell you right now, you will not get the above quote first, though it's newsy. In fact, that quote won't appear anywhere on the first page of your results. You'll get this first.

On the up side of financial integrity, McCain's campaign contributions from both Bear Stearns and JPMorgan since January 2006 have been much less than many other candidates (math mine, data FEC's):

JPMorgan:
Guiliani- $64,800
Romney- $46,200
Thompson- $24,600
The RNC- $13,051
The DNC- $10,500
Obama- $10,450
McCain- $8,900


Bear Stearns:
Dodd- $183,600
Clinton- $125,085
Guiliani- $138,991
McCain- $45,150

Too bad Bear Stearns owned more McCain stock than JPMorgan. However, much as McCain takes over the coffers of the RNC, JPMorgan will absorb the risk, profit and political influence of Bear Stearns.