McCain Wanted Credit, So What About The Blame?

John McCain was poised to receive kudos for parachuting into DC to make an economic deal happen.  Instead, he held up the works and had his spinmeisters predict how he’d get the spoils of a victory.  Think Progress has the quotes:

“[T]his bill would not have been agreed to had it not been for John McCain. … But, you know, this is a bipartisan accomplishment, a bipartisan success. And if people want to get something done in Washington, they just watch John McCain.” — Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, 9/29/08

“Earlier in the week, when Senator McCain came back to Washington, there had been no deal reached. … What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all the parties to the table, including the House Republicans.” — Senior adviser Steve Schmidt, 9/28/08

“But here are the facts, and I’m not overselling anything. The fact is that the House Republicans were not in the mix at all. John didn’t phone this one in. He came and actually did something. … You can’t phone something like this in. Thank God John came back.” — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 9/28/08

Even among Republicans, the bill failed 135-65.

Predictably, Republicans are blaming Nancy Pelosi, saying that comments she made cost 12 votes.  To this, Barney Frank says, “Because somebody hurt their feelings, they’ve decided to punish the country…I’ll make an offer. Give me those 12 peoples’ names and I will go talk, uncharacteristically nicely to them, and tell them what wonderful people they are, and maybe they’ll now think about the country.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.