"Patently False" - the truth about McCain's roll in the bailout dealings

"This sort of clumsy attempt by Harry Reid and the Democrats to say that a deal had been reached at one o'clock yesterday afternoon and suddenly, to put it in Harry Reid's words, 'and then guess who came to town and it completely fell apart?' I mean that is a patently false explanation of what happened." -- The Examiner's Bill Sammon

"There wasn't a deal. You have to first have to accept a predicate that there was an arrangement agreed to by all of the necessary lawmakers and authorities -- that was essentially a piece of paper and a proposal that had been discussed and agreed to by one senate committee that's not the same as a deal."-- Fox News' Carl Cameron

Fox News
September 26, 2008

Fox News' Jon Scott: "Carl, give us your assessment of the statement that Harry Reid made a little bit earlier during that news conference. He didn't use John McCain's name, but he said that things were proceeding along swimmingly, essentially. And they were, you know, getting close. And then he said a certain person came to Washington and the wheels fell off. Is that an accurate description of what happened?"

Fox News' Carl Cameron: "No. There wasn't a deal. You have to first accept a predicate that there was an arrangement agreed to by all the necessary lawmakers and authorities -- that was essentially a piece of paper and a proposal that had been discussed and agreed to by one senate committee -- that's not the same as a deal. A deal in budget parlance and bailout parlance requires the White House, the regulators, the House and Senate Republicans and Democrats.

And because House Republicans were not given an adequate seat at the table, Republicans had great misgivings about this -- the American people have great misgivings about this -- I mean 60% and more in many polls say that the public just doesn't like this. They think its way to big a bailout with not enough insurance that the Devil is not in those details. So McCain's role in this was to bring about progress for a deal, which as of this hour has not yet existed. They are getting clo ser, they say, but yesterday because there was a commerce committee deal does not constitute finality, that was McCain's point and he has been making it since Monday. And Harry Reid saying that we shouldn't inject Presidential politics into this and then immediately turn to John McCain raises some questions. Everybody is playing politics, with less than 40 days before the election, of course this was going to be looked at through partisan prisms, but how about looking at it through taxpayer prisms, taxpayer glasses. All of this discussion about we're worried about Wall Street, but more about main street -- taxpayers are included in both of those places, and Republicans in the House say they were not brought to the table adequately, and these aren't John McCain's idea's per se, he just brought all the people together so that these ideas could be articulated and if Democrats buy into them, that will be part of the deal as yet uncut." ...

The Examiner's Bill Sammon: "First of all I just wanted to say, I want to echo what Carl said, this sort of clumsy attempt by Harry Reid and the Democrats to say that a deal had been reached at one o'clock yesterday afternoon and suddenly, to put it in Harry Reid's words, 'and then guess who came to town and it completely fell apart?' I mean that is a patently false explanation of what happened. And it would seem to be an attempt to preemptively set up John McCain for blame when he did arrive in town because there wasn't a deal."

Watch Bill Sammon Call Harry Reid's Attack "Patently False"