Tim Fernholz

As John McCain launches ridiculous attacks (but not an actual denial) against the Times for reporting that his campaign manager’s lobbying firm was paid by Fannie Mae until last month, I wanted to take issue with an argument that both McCain and Ezra have made: that the media’s refusal to pay attention to McCain’s early-campaign […]

Health-care wonkery, the end of GSEs (and the SATS?), new ideas about Sudan, plus a little polling at the end, all in this week’s Think Tank Roundup. More health-care plan analysis. The Urban Institute has recently conducted a comparative analysis of the pros and cons of the McCain and Obama health-care plans. Obama’s plan would […]

We’ve already covered some of the problems with this bailout, but there is also the question of whether a bailout is the right approach at all. Should our response instead be more limited on Wall Street and more expansive on Main Street? Today, NDN’s Simon Rosenberg stopped by to chat with our staff and made […]

John McCain‘s communications team delves into a world of surrealism, wherein nothing is as it seems! The advertisement claims that “McCain and his Congressional allies led” while “Obama and his liberal allies [were] Mum on the market crisis.” Well, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke led, producing the first draft of the […]

George Will has some bad news for John McCain today: You aren’t fit to be president — mainly because you aren’t conservative enough! It’s one part disgust with McCain’s campaign, one part disgust with the bailout. While the whole thing is worth reading, the section about McCain’s decision to throw out Andrew Cuomo as a […]

On this morning’s conference call, one reporter asked if John McCain’s vote in favor of the controversial 2005 bankruptcy bill had any relevance to the current debate. The question wasn’t really addressed, but the debate over the bill illustrates the the difference between the way the government treats financially troubled people and financially troubled corporations. […]

James Ledbetter joins the chorus pointing out that the massive bailout proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson last week is basically socialism. In fact, Ledbetter says, it’s the biggest socialist investment anywhere in the world ever. But in reality the plan has a lot more in common with post-USSR crony capitalism than socialism — it’s government […]

The Obama campaign released a plan today that talks about all kinds of good government initiatives related, and unrelated, to the financial crisis: “STOP WASTEFUL SPENDING AND CURB INFLUENCE OF SPECIAL INTERESTS SO GOVERNMENT CAN TACKLE OUR GREAT CHALLENGES.” [PDF] Catchy, right? At first I assumed this would be silly, but there are a few […]

“[The Obama campaign has] called us liars. We are amazed that they have gone to this extent.” — Rick Davis, McCain campaign manager, on a conference call today presenting his new attack ad. Well, presumably with a straight face. I couldn’t see him over the phone. Update: Here is some good commentary on new advertisements […]