Today, in Mother Jones, David Corn discloses the names and affiliations of the 117 lobbyists working on the McCain campaign. (The full article can be found here.) On this day when McCain is posturing about the evils of Wall Street and the influence peddlers, he has neglected one simple fact: His campaign is riddled with the very vermin he is now decrying. One would think that McCain, that reformer, that Maverick, would have cleaned house completely before making such sweeping indictments against influence peddling. Ah, I remember, this the McCain, the myth - remember he was a POW. That must explain it; POW's are exempt from complete truth and clarity.

The last few days have descended into a chaos for McCain. First, he repeated Bush's main talking point "the fundamentals of the economy are sound", just after Lehman Bros. filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America and the fate of AIG hung in the balance. Investopedia defines the fundamentals as "The qualitative and quantitative information that contributes to the economic well-being and the subsequent financial valuation of a company, security or currency. Analysts and investors analyze these fundamentals to develop an estimate as to whether the underlying asset is considered a worthwhile investment." In essence, the fundamentals are the framework in which American work, save and strive to improve their quality of life.

However, when the Obama campaign questioned McCain's statements, McCain changed his story. Suddenly, the "fundamentals" no longer were the underpinnings of the economy, but the workers themselves. In McCain's view, then, workers aren't hurt when the overall economy goes south. By that convoluted logic, Enron didn't hurt workers by wiping out retirement and investments, rather, it set them free to "fundamentally" try to make up the difference. According to McCain, the "fundamentals (workers) are strong, resilient, and creative. What McCain doesn't address is that in a weak economy, when money is hard to come by, commodity prices are through the roof, there is less left over to start that business. Not to mention that with banks failing and tightening their belts, it is harder to get that small business loan. So, I would like McCain to point out just how he defines his "strong" fundamentals.

It appears that McCain, and his pet lobbyists, are doing all they can to obscure the issue once again. What little respect I had left for McCain, has left the building.