Stop lieing McCain

You were not misled. You were not duped. McCain is just afraid of losing in his primary race to an actual conservative.

Under growing pressure from conservatives and "tea party" activists, Sen. John McCain of Arizona is having to defend his record of supporting the government's massive bailout of the financial system

.

In response to criticism from opponents seeking to defeat him in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, the four-term senator says he was misled by then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. McCain said the pair assured him that the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would focus on what was seen as the cause of the financial crisis, the housing meltdown.

"Obviously, that didn't happen," McCain said in a meeting Thursday with The Republic's Editorial Board, recounting his decision-making during the critical initial days of the fiscal crisis. "They decided to stabilize the Wall Street institutions, bail out (insurance giant) AIG, bail out Chrysler, bail out General Motors. . . . What they figured was that if they stabilized Wall Street - I guess it was trickle-down economics - that therefore Main Street would be fine."

Nearly 15 months later, commercial lenders still are in shaky condition and the commercial real-estate industry is in trouble, he said. On Friday, President Barack Obama announced $1.5 billion in funding for new measures to help Arizona and four other states hit hard by the tanked housing market and by joblessness.

But McCain stopped short of calling the TARP a mistake.

"Something had to be done because the world's financial system

was on the verge of collapse," he said. "Any economist, liberal or conservative, would agree with that. The action they took, I don't agree with."

All McCain had to do was listen to the Republican leadership in the Senate or the conservative media to know what TARP was all about. The problem wasn't that he was misled. The problem is McCain is pretty far from a conservative.

This should be a warning to all you wishy washy RINO's. If you want to continue getting elected and supported by the Republican base start acting like a conservative. The Republican elitists like McCain hate the tea party movement because of that.

The proof is in the pudding. McCain is losing in the polls in Arizone. Rubio is leading Crist in Florida. Most importantly Scott Brown won "Ted Kennedy's" seat in Massachusetts. This country has always been a center right nation. Finally the people are becoming more active and voting out those who don't fit that mold.