“Our McCain ad struck a chord, eliciting both reason and vitriol. It strikes me that it is worth being clear what the ad says and doesn’t say. Other than the bad French accent, it isn’t anti-French, xenophobic or ‘racist.’ It doesn’t accuse the French of taking jobs from us. It features a Frenchman hailing Sen. John McCain for bringing jobs to France. There is a fundamental difference. And that is the point. We’ve run a massive and unsustainable trade deficit. Despite a falling dollar and rising exports, we’re still selling off or borrowing about $2 billion a day to cover that deficit. One in five manufacturing jobs has been lost over the past eight years. And as even apologists of our current trade policies admit, this contributes big time to the stagnation of U.S. wages. This isn’t the fault of the French, or the Chinese or the Arabs — nor does the ad suggest that. It is the responsibility of the U.S. to figure out its strategy in a global economy.” (03/26/08)