When fact-checking is really bullshit

McCNN tries to tell us that Obama is misleading us by holding McCain responsible for his own positions, using his own words. (h/t Paul Krugman)

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

In context, it's clear that McCain is specifically citing the deregulation of banking in one aspect as a good example of how he would deal with the cost of health care, which he identifies as the most important problem to solve. He continues:

You should be able to buy your insurance from any willing provider—the state bureaucracies are no better than national ones.

Yeah, there's a man who thinks a regulated marketplace is best!

This earlier statement is more definitive:

We do not believe in ... the use of state power to mandate care, coverage, or costs.

Uh, sounds like deregulation to me. Sure enough, the rest of McCain's position paper is filled with childlike faith in the market and vague nostrums that maybe, just maybe the tooth fairy will leave under our pillows. Along with a note on good stationery telling us how free and wonderful we are.

And, meanwhile, McCain will cut off at the knees any state experiments that might show a different way, all in obeisance to a free market that by definition leaves people behind.