I can't even get into the constant stream of (at best) half-truths coming out of the McCain campaign, which is a real disappointment to me as someone who at least used to respect McCain. (Richard Cohen, a former McCain cheerleader, outlines his disappointment in a great column in the Washington Post.) But I had to point this out -- one of those moments where you realize that McCain's biggest argument is sometimes with himself. Here's how he's talked about regulation in the economy over the past two days:
- Deregulation: McCain issued a statement Monday morning saying that “we cannot tolerate a system that handicaps our markets and our banks.”
- Regulation: McCain’s campaign then put out an ad calling for “tougher rules on Wall Street.”
- Deregulation: This morning, on NBC’s Today Show, McCain said, “Of course, I don’t like excessive and unnecessary government regulation.”
- Regulation: Then, on CBS’s The Early Show, McCain said, “Do I believe in excess government regulation? Yes.”
- Both: On CNBC’s Squawk Box, McCain said, “We don’t want to burden average citizens with over-regulation and government bureaucracy…And I’m proud to be a Teddy Roosevelt Republican, who said, ‘unfettered capitalism leads to corruption,’ and we’ve got to fix this.”