not really.
By GLEN JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer
WARREN, Ohio (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain, struggling to strike the right note amid roiling financial markets and a Wall Street restructuring, on Wednesday softened his opposition to a bailout of mega-insurer AIG that he had flatly ruled out a day earlier.
Before the Treasury Department proposed an $85 billion loan to keep afloat American International Group Inc., the country's largest corporate insurer, McCain said he wouldn't support any bailout for AIG or any other company. "This is something that we're going to have to work through," he said Tuesday. "There's too much corruption, there's too much excess."
On Wednesday, McCain repeated that he didn't want to bail out AIG and knew of no one else who did. But, he told "Good Morning America" on ABC, millions of people with retirements, investments and insurance tied to AIG were "going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption."
Elaborating on the charge of corruption, McCain said that many Wall Street executives had claimed "everything's fine, not to worry" and that Congress and regulators had paid no attention. "All of them were asleep at the switch," he said, and went on to blame special interests and lobbyists as well.
flip flop