MCCAIN WANTS A COMMISSION…. There was a great episode of “The Simpsons” a few years ago, in which the city of Springfield was looking to local officials to address a crisis. Mayor Joe Quimby, anxious to give the appearance of action without actually doing anything, announced the creation of a “blue-ribbon commission.” Lenny responds earnestly, “Did he say a blue-ribbon commission?” — prompting Carl to say, “Well, you can’t do any better than that!”

Maybe the McCain campaign watches “The Simpsons,” too.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Tuesday called for a high-level commission to study the current economic crisis and claimed that a corrupt and excessive Wall Street had betrayed American workers. […] Appearing Tuesday on the three network morning shows, McCain said there was indeed a financial crisis and that to understand what had caused it, the nation would need a review on the order of the one led by the Sept. 11 commission. […] “I warned two years ago that this situation was deteriorating and unacceptable,” McCain said on “Good Morning America” on ABC. “And the old-boy network and the corruption in Washington is directly involved and one of the causes of this financial crisis that we’re in today. And I know how to fix it and I know how to get things done.”

Is it me, or is this message a little disjointed? McCain knows precisely why this crisis unfolded, and he wants a commission to help him determine precisely why this crisis unfolded.

McCain saw this coming two years ago (for which we’re supposed to give him credit), but as a policy maker and presidential hopeful, he didn’t lift a finger to try to prevent or address it before it became a crisis (for which we’re not supposed give him credit).

McCain knows how to fix the crisis, but he hasn’t said what this solution might be, or why he hasn’t tried to implement this solution before.

He’s going to have to do better than this.