Spin Cycle

Another example of how people come to believe completely opposite things about what is going on in the presidential race: Consider the plan McCain unveiled at Tuesday's debate to buy distressed mortgages to help homeowners.

As reported, that night McCain's campaign issued releases saying they would be bought at written-down prices, and the plan could be paid for out of the $700 billion bailout. Obama's campaign said that Obama (and others) had proposed the same thing earlier.

By Wednesday, as widely reported, the plan had changed. McCain advisors said the mortgages would be bought at full value, with taxpayers taking any writedowns instead of lenders, and it would involve money beyond the $700 billion. At that point, Obama and economists across the political spectrum began panning the plan as one that would reward lenders for making bad loans.

Here's how Sarah Palin synthesized those events in a speech Ohio last evening:

"Yesterday, in The Los Angeles Times, the Obama campaign claimed that John McCain's idea to stabilize mortgages and support homeowners was actually Barack Obama's idea. Now, they're saying it's a terrible idea.

"This pattern raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgment. It raises serious questions about his truthfulness. But there is no question about his ambition.

"Ambition explains launching your political career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist. Ambition explains claiming Tuesday night that John's good idea, the Homeowner Resurgence Plan, was stolen from you, then attacking it the next day."

Get it? McCain changes his plan, so Obama changes his position. Give a speech, leave out the part where McCain changes his plan and Presto! You can make Obama sound like an idiot?

So some people walk away concluding that Obama is totally unprincipled, when the reality is that McCain changed his mind on his plan.