Talking As a Realist

Yesterday Barack Obama spoke some of the truest words a presidential nominee has ever spoken. Speaking on the massive Bush administration bailout for the collapsing financial industry, Senator Obama said that such a huge tax payer burdened bailout would require him to delay his spending programs he's proposed while campaigning.

"Although we are potentially providing $700 billion in available money to the Treasury, we don't anticipate that all that money gets spent right away and we don't anticipate that all that money is lost. How we're going to structure that in budget terms still has to be decided," Obama told NBC's "Today" show in an interview aired Tuesday.

"Does that mean I can do everything that I've called for in this campaign right away? Probably not," he said. "I think we're going to have to phase it in."

This presents a stark contrast to how GOP hopeful John McCain is approaching the subject. On Sunday he said he would still balance the budget even when figuring in Bush's $700 billion + bailout.

HARWOOD: Would you concede then that you could not achieve your goal of balancing the budget in your first term with this huge bailout?

Sen. McCAIN: Not at all. I believe we can still balance the budget. I think that it's--that it is restraint of spending, and I think it's growth of government and the economy--and the recover of our economy. And anything you do that would have--take more money from the American people who are hurting more now I think would be a serious mistake.

In McCain's quote alone there are two complete lies. One, there's no way he'll balance the budget in four years. Two, he says taking money away from the American people right now would be a serious mistake. Then why in the world has he supported every single one of Bush's tax payer funded bailouts? Including the current $700 billion Bush bailout on the table right now, John McCain has supported over $1.5 trillion in tax payer funded bailouts. That's taking money away from the American people. It's actually worse. It's taking money away while also making the American people responsible for bad debt our grand children won't even be able to pay off. He's lying and anyone who buys his story is a liar. But remember, Republicans aren't interested in the truth. They just want him to say the right words, which are that he'll balance the budget in four years and that he's against taking money away from the American people.

Republicans want nothing to do with candid, realistic talk that to overcome this Republican invented crisis it will take some sacrifice on our part, as well as some spending restraints. Not John McCain, he's allowed to say whatever he wants because he knows his base will cheer and clap for four more years of the same miserable failures. To them, and anyone who would vote for them, America is greater and stronger than it's ever been. All we have to do is not take money away from tax payers, balance the budget, continue our endless wars, amend the Constitution to satisfy the religious right and build a statue to George Bush. Realistic talk to them is weakness and anti-American.