If McCain should say “No” to the Bush/Paulson bailout plan that goes double – or maybe triple - for Obama. And he needs to say it quickly and clearly. He can’t play “Lets Make a Deal.” Any deal the House Dems can craft will be a bad deal. Obama has to say “No Deal!” His status as a hero – his core brand of change - depends on it. .
Obama’s best explanation of what he meant by change was, “If you keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result you are crazy. That’s why we need to bring real change to Washington.” He was talking about Iraq, but he could have been talking about the financial crisis.
The Fed, under both Clinton and Bush, has been bailing out financial institutions, one after the other, for years. It hasn’t worked. It just makes things worse. Now under intense time pressure, Paulson and Benrnanke ae telling Congress that if they don’t authorize the mother of all bailouts the whole system will melt down. Maybe they are right. I don’t know. But it sure smells like a classic con. It’s like a man running up to you at the carnival and saying “A guy just got stabbed back there. Hold this bloody knife and I’ll get someone to give him CPR. Oh, and be sure to touch the handle, OK? ”
The only group of rubes that might be stupid enough to fall for that (because they really are big-hearted bozos) is the current Dem House Leadership. Not coincidentally, they are also the only group that actually has lower approval ratings than the Bush White House.
Obama needs to stay absolutely clear of this legislative train wreck. And to do so he needs to go with one of his best lines in the convention speech, “Enough”. Something like this:
“Enough. Enough panic, enough lies, enough accounting tricks. We will get to the bottom of this and we are going to get through it, because we are all Americans and we are all in this together. But it isn't going to be solved by pulling an all-nighter then jumping on a plane to go and campaign. The days of fast fixes and quick bucks are over. It is going to take hard work and hard facts. And to my Wall Street friends all I can say is calm down, take a deep breath… and then take your hand out of my pocket.”
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