This is a really important story, not just because it shows how out of touch John McCain is and how irresponsible a McCain presidency really would be, but also because it highlights the importance of the blogosphere in the Obama campaign rapid response machinery.

Remember back in the olden days -- back in 2004 -- when we would hear from one of our most reliably progressive voices, Paul Krugman, just twice a week, only when his New York Times column was published on Mondays and Fridays? That was before Krugman launched his brilliant blog, The Conscience of a Liberal, which he debuted in September 2005 with these prescient words:

What can you do on the Web that you can't do in print? A lot. There's still no substitute for traditional newspapers, but adding online material can really enhance the overall product.

One thing that you get from the web that you don't get in print is, of course, immediacy. Before his blog, the last word Krugman would have had this week would have been yesterday's column on the government bailout; but thanks to his blog, last night at 7:24pm, Krugman posted this doozy about something John McCain had written in the latest issue of Contingencies Magazine (pdf of the full article HERE):

Here's what McCain has to say about the wonders of market-based health reform:

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.

So McCain, who now poses as the scourge of Wall Street, was praising financial deregulation like 10 seconds ago -- and promising that if we marketize health care, it will perform as well as the financial industry!

Why does this matter? Because this afternoon, the Obama campaign held an impromptu conference call for press with Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to highlight McCain's highly irresponsible health care prescription, which they acknowledged was broken by Krugman on his blog. The purpose of the call was to put McCain's words in a larger context, connecting them to McCain's statement that the fundamentals of the economy are strong and his continued desire to privatize Social Security, all proof that McCain is out of touch and that, as Sherrod Brown put it.

The American people don't trust John McCain with their pensions and they don't trust him with their healthcare.

This wasn't the last word the Obama campaign had on the subject. At an appearance in Florida, Barack worked what McCain wrote in Contingencies into his stump speech:

There's only one candidate in this race who called himself, and I quote, "fundamentally a de-regulator" when it was reckless de-regulation and lack of oversight that's a big part of the problem on Wall St. right now. And here's the really scary part. Now, the great de-regulator wants to turn his attention to healthcare. He wrote in the current issue of a magazine, and I quote: "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." That's right, he said he wants to do for healthcare what Washington did for banking. Folks, let me tell you, we don't want to go there. That's a risk America can't afford.

All thanks to a Friday night post on Krugman's blog. The vast left-wing conspiracy at work, ladies and gentlemen. We're not in 2004 anymore.

Update [2008-9-20 19:49:12 by Todd Beeton]:Thanks to TomP for video of one of Barack's speeches today, in which Barack rips McCain for his Contingencies article.

No doubt it will continue to be standard in every one of his stump speeches moving forward.