John McCain attacked Barack Obama recently saying Obama would "slow" FCS, the future combat system which has been a procurement nightmare with corruption and overruns all around. McCain had previously spoken out about how bad that nightmare has been.

Indeed, it's been so bad that, back in July, the McCain's campaign's senior economic adviser submitted a "plan to balance the federal budget by 2013 to The Washington Post editorial board" that specifically set out what McCain would do about it as president.

Noah Shachtman at Danger Room found the relevant passage:

Balance the budget requires slowing outlay growth to 2.4 percent. The roughly $470 billion dollars (by 2013) in slower spending growth come from reduced deployments abroad ($150 billion; consistent with success in Iraq/Afghanistan that permits deployments to be cut by half -- hopefully more), slower discretionary spending in non-defense and Pentagon procurements ($160 billion; there are lots of procurements -- airborne laser, Globemaster, Future Combat System -- that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed).

Oops.

Noah continues:

McCain aides are privately furious about the contradiction, I'm hearing. But there's been no official comment, so far, about the mix-up.

I bet McCain's infamous anger is showing right now - and his campaign staff are on the receiving end.

Crossposted from Newshoggers