Jonah Goldberg wrote an absolutely brilliant piece a couple of days ago at NRO about the House's own failed attempt at a bailout and how both sides screwed it up.
Meanwhile, President Bush, his popularity ratings stuck at below-freezing numbers, has decided to cling to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson for warmth on the grounds that the vaunted former Goldman Sachs CEO has the credibility to sell the solution to a problem he’s been exacerbating for 18 months. When a reporter for Forbes magazine asked a Treasury spokesman last week why Congress had to lay out $700 billion, the answer came back: “It’s not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number.”Mr. Goldberg and I probably disagree on what level of involvement is needed here by Big Gov in 'assisting' Wall Street. But his vitriol toward both parties on the failed House bill was too good not to point out.
There’s a confidence builder.
As for the reputedly free-market purists of the congressional GOP, with whom my sympathies generally lie, I cannot let pass without comment the fact that they controlled the legislative branch for most of the last eight years. Only now, when capitalism is in flames, does this fire brigade try to enforce the free-market fire codes without compromise.
I loathe populism. But if there ever has been a moment when reasonable men’s hands itch for the pitchfork, this must surely be it. No one is blameless. No one is pure. Two decades of crapulence by the political class has been prologue to the era of coprophagy that is now upon us. It is crap sandwiches for as far as the eye can see.
As far as the new Senate bill, why am I not surprised? This is Washington after all. A smaller bill gets defeated in the House of Representatives, then a much bigger, more expensive porker of a bill gets passed by the Senate and will likely now pass in the House.
Crap sandwich, alright.
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