The editors of the Washington Post, this morning:
One element of the Obama campaign’s brief against Mr. McCain is that he supported repeal of the law separating commercial banks from investment banks. “He’s spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers,” Mr. Obama said yesterday. “Phil Gramm, one of the architects of the deregulation in Washington that led directly to this mess on Wall Street, is also the architect of John McCain’s economic plan.” Would it be churlish to point out that another author of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley law is former congressman Jim Leach, a founder of Republicans for Obama? Or that Obama advisers Lawrence H. Summers and Robert E. Rubin supported the repeal — which was signed by President Bill Clinton?
By the way, the Post actually takes it easy on Obama, since another senator who voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley was… Joe Biden. A couple of Democratic bloggers have tried to muddy the waters by pointing to his vote against the initial version. But he voted for the conference version – what was worked out by House and Senate negotiators — that ultimately became law.
If Gramm-Leach-Bliley was so obviously misguided that we’re supposed to be horrified that McCain had Phil Gramm as an advisor, shouldn’t we be even more horrified that Obama would put Biden a heartbeat away from the presidency?