For the record, above you’ll find John McCain’s statement (widely mocked and panned political stunt) yesterday that he’s suspending his campaign to focus on the economy, as well as Barack Obama’s full response (I posted a shorter clip of it yesterday).
President Bush went on national TV last night to address the nation about the crisis.
Bush has invited both Obama and McCain to the White House on Thursday to meet with him and Congressional leaders to try to work out a bipartisan deal on the economic bailout:
“Mr. Bush used his speech to signal that he was willing to address lawmakers’ concerns, including fears that tax dollars will be used to pay Wall Street executives and that the plan would put too much authority in the hands of the Treasury secretary without sufficient oversight.”
Watch Bush’s address, AFTER THE JUMP…
President Invites Candidates to Meeting [nyt]
George Bush’s scary story [salon]
Here’s Salon‘s Andrew Leonard’s take on it: “As a rule, presidents in moments of national crisis aim to reassure a nervous populace. But on Wednesday night, Bush faced a unique challenge — convincing his country that the United States is in such dire straits that we have no choice but to expeditiously enact the Paulson plan to spend as much $700 billion ‘so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse.’ So — this was no time to channel the ghost of FDR and tell us that the only thing to fear is fear itself. Instead, we were told that we should be fearful, that the ‘situation is becoming more precarious by the day’ and that ‘the market is not functioning properly, there is a widespread loss of confidence and major sectors of American industry are in danger of shutting down.’ Yikes!”
