October 12, 2008, 9:29 A.M.

Kevin,

John McCain is starting to look like one of those sitcom dads (or maybe grandpas), who may be the titular head of the family, but is, in reality, a gruff (but lovable) figurehead that’s generally befuddled by all of the household shenanigans going on around him. He’s got one particularly troublesome daughter, Sarah:

“Hey pops, I’m going to go tell the world that our next door neighbor is palling around with terrorists. Okay? See ya!”

or

“I’m going to head out the store and violate the public trust by having someone fired for trying to sneak eleven items into the ten items or fewer lane. Okay? Later tater!”

or

“You know what I thought I’d do? Make a public appearance at a sporting event in the city that’s the core of support for our opponent in a state that we’re in all likelihood going to lose. I’m sure I won’t get booed like I just promised to give everyone herpes. Don’t forget to pick up the kids from hockey practice! Love ya!”

Every time Sarah gets herself into trouble, Pops McCain has to rouse himself out of the Barcalounger and do his best to clean up the mess by say…undoing the potential (white) race riots Sarah “accidentally” stoked.

Flailing may be too kind a word for the McCain campaign. The Politico reports that McCain is now considering “more than 30 ideas” as potential winning electoral responses to the economic downturn. The rationale, according to The Politico:

“McCain advisers want him to throw more out there, hoping it’ll stick.”

His new campaign slogan: McCain/Palin: Throwing Shit.

President Bush and Secretary Paulson also seem to be looking for a bailout do-over by embracing their inner Hugo Chavez and “partially” nationalizing the banking industry.

If Bush is doing something that even Paul Krugman thinks is a good idea (though a day late and a few billion short), you’ve got to wonder if you’ve been transported into Bizarro World.

I’m going to admit that I don’t know a lot about economics. Everything I do know comes from a book called, Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, a book that should be subtitled, “Economics for semi-intelligent people who slept through Econ 101 in college because it was at 8am and met in an auditorium with a 1500 person capacity and was taught by some fossil who read from his own textbook, and who could be expected to actually learn anything under those circumstances?”

(Full disclosure, Charles Wheelan went to my high school, though four years ahead of me. He was known as Charlie, and was widely believed to be marked with greatness, which has generally been born out, at least judging from his home page.)

Anyway, in his chapter from Naked Economics on “Keeping Score,” he discusses economic recessions and notes that there’s two main tools the government has for kicking the economy in the ass, fiscal and monetary policy. Monetary policy is what the Federal Reserve handles, and the only real weapon is juking interest rates. Clearly, they’re out of bullets and have even hurled the gun at the head of the downturn, which gave a sinister laugh and kept advancing while cracking its knuckles in response. Whatever help they could have been at this point involves inventing a time machine and going back to 2002 to kick Alan Greenspan in the teeth.

When it comes to fiscal policy, the government can either cut taxes, which McCain and Obama are both promising to do - though Obama’s is more oriented to the middle-class - or, the government can start spending on things like roads and bridges and construction and novelists and college teachers. (Those last two may be wishful thinking.)

People are too afraid to spend their own money, so the government has to do it for them. Instead, McCain wants to enact a “spending freeze” which just about every economist would call “dangerously naive.”

Or at least that’s what he was saying last week. Who knows what will happen this week?

—John

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