Biden on McCain’s comment that “the fundamentals of the economy are strong”, a missed opportunity

I bumped into this post yesterday on Crooks and Liars and thought to myself that here is where the Democrats do differ from Republicans.

To no one’s surprise, Biden is continuing as the attacker against the McCain campaign, and I’m glad to see the campaign spend some time on economic issues.  Sadly it’s seems to be less about the state of the economy and how one candidate might improve upon it and more about how out-of-touch McCain is from the financial hardships of regular voters (out-of-touch could accurately describe, to varying degrees, every member of Congress or the Senate).  But I digress…

Where I thought Biden differentiated himself from what the equivalent campaigner would do was in his concentration on accuracy.  By electing to quote McCain verbatim as saying “the fundamentals of the economy are strong”, he passes up an opportunity to give the attack a bit of extra longevity.  If it were a Republican campaigner, he would have said “and I quote, Lesbian McBabyKiller, who wants to be your next president, believes that the economy is strong!”.  By foregoing verbatim accuracy, Republican proxies in the media could pass the errant quote along and confront Lesbian McBabyKiller on it, which would invite a reply addressing the nitpicking issue of accuracy rather than rebut the spirit of the claim.  Senator McBabyKiller might say: “no no no, I’m being misquoted.  I said the FUNDAMENTALS of the economy are strong”, which would beg the follow-up salvo: “Unemployment is at 6.1%!  Are those 6.1% of out-of-work Americans PERIPHERAL to the economy??”

Just a thought that entered my mind as I read through that C&L post.  Each party has a sympathetic presence in the media.  The Republicans give their’s better material to work with.

… and the cow goes moo