Saved By Zero?

I was only able to catch the tail end of Tuesday's Republican debate on CNBC. One portion that I haven't heard mentioned yet caught my attention because of the odd nature of a comment by John McCain:

MS. BARTIROMO: Senator McCain, has Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cut interest rates aggressively enough?

SEN. MCCAIN: (Off mike.)

MS. BARTIROMO: Has Ben Bernanke cut rates aggressively enough?

SEN. MCCAIN: I'm not -- don't have that kind of expertise to know exactly whether he has cut interest rates sufficiently or not, and that's why we've put that responsibility in the hands of the head of the Federal Reserve. I do know that this nation has faced some pretty good blows in the last month or so with the credit crunch and the subprime lending. I'm glad that -- whenever they cut interest rates. I wish interest rates were zero. But we leave those responsibilities to the smartest people we can find, and I think that so far, he's done a good job.

Did McCain mean he wishes interest rates were zero in an imaginary world of unicorns and fairy princesses? Because in the real world, zero interest rates are not a sign of a healthy economy. Japan recently had a zero interest monetary policy for several years in an effort to bring the economy out of a prolonged recession. Don't think we want to go down that road.