Opinion: John McCain seriously sharpens his rhetoric on the economy

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John McCain definitely wanted to start off this week on better rhetorical footing than he did the preceding one, when he gave Democrats a gift-wrapped political present by declaring he viewed the U.S. economy as fundamentally strong.

It was the wrong note on the wrong day and, as The Ticket noted previously, his goal this Monday was to put that comment as far behind him as possible.

So here’s what he said on NBC’s ‘Today’ show this morning, when discussing the turmoil roiling the nation’s financial system: ‘We are in the most serious crisis since World War II.’

Upon reflection, he may have wanted to add the word ‘economic’ between ‘serious’ and ‘crisis.’ Offhand, we’d guess that quite a few historians would rate the decision by China to engage in the Korean War, the face-off with the Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as worthy competitors on a list of highly challenging moments since 1945.

Regardless, the economy continued to dominate the campaign dialogue, and The Times’ Bob Drogin and Peter Nicholas have the details on extensive comments on it by both McCain and Barack Obama.

-- Don Frederick