Today’s opining on the public discourse.

Who’s for the bailout? Anybody? Anybody? Beuller?

Today, Vice President Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten spent the day in Congress trying to convince conservatives to accept the administration’s bailout package. Politico
reports, however, that “House Republicans rose up en masse against their vice president.” ThinkProgress has compiled a list of conservatives who have declared opposition to the administration’s $700 billion bailout:

Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO)
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN)
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA)
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL)

[snip]

“I don’t know anyone who’s sold on this rescue plan,” said Rep. Wally Herger
(R-CA).

O-kay. Nobody in Congress. How’s about regular Americans?

A new Rasmussen poll conducted on Monday finds that 44 percent of Americans oppose the Bush administration’s $700 billion bailout plan, up from 37 percent a day earlier. Twenty-five percent support it, and 31 percent are undecided. Thirty-five percent believe it will help the economy, while 30 percent say it will hurt it. (HT: LA Times)

So. Basically. It’s only the quarter of the country that’s stupid enough to like Bush that likes the bailout.

Something tells me this was a really fucking bad idea. But hark! A right-wing editor has an answer!

Yesterday on Fox News, Weekly Standard editor Fred Barnes blamed Democrats in Congress for causing the Dow Jones industrials to close Monday down 372 points. “I think it was Congress stepping in and saying, ‘We’re going to settle the terms of how the Treasury Department acquires these illiquid assets,’” Barnes said. Then, citing opposition to the Bush administration’s proposed plan to bail out Wall Street, Barnes offered Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson some advice: Just don’t call it a “bailout,” call it a “rescue”:

BARNES: We would be in a better situation, or at least the Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson would if this were known as “rescue” rather than a “bailout.” “Bailout” sounds terrible. Who is for a bailout? A lot of people are for a rescue.

N-no. No. Still sounds like an incredibly stupid fucking idea. You know what they say about lipstick on a pig…

I think this is taking the Bushies a bit by surprise. They are, after all, used to getting everything they want and more when they scream that the sky is falling. And they’re no strangers to manipulation for political gain – you remember all that haggling over timetables for Iraq? You remember how, instead of Obama’s 2010 plan, they went for 2011? Yeah:

Negotiating the post-UN mandate security agreement with Iraq, Bush argued for more time and both sides ultimately agreed that all U.S. troops would be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, not 2010, even though Bush has said previously that “if they were to say, leave, we would leave.”

Why did Bush go back on his word? A source tells ThinkProgress that White House communications staff were concerned that Maliki’s
endorsement of the 2010 time line would damage Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign. Indeed, during an interview with Iraqi television last week (according to an Open Source Center translation),
Maliki suggested that the U.S. presidential elections played a role:

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked
for a cha
nge [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

Uh-huh. Couldn’t make Bush III look bad, now, could we? Not even to save American lives, much less respect the Iraqis. Way to support the troops, there.

And speaking of not wanting to make themselves look bad, McCain’s famous Straight Talk Express has become the No-Talk Express:

Earlier today, the McCain-Palin campaign backed out of its promise to allow print journalists from reporting on Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R-AK) U.N. meetings this afternoon. Instead, the campaign wanted to turn it into an elaborate photo op, deciding to allow photographers and a CNN camera crew only. According to Politico, the press have begun to revolt:

But the imbroglio began developing Tuesday morning when Palin’s handlers informed the small print press contingent covering her campaign that the print reporter designated to cover the events, Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal, would not be allowed to cover the sprays. […]

The campaign also at first moved to bar CNN, the television network designated for pool duty, from sending its editorial producer – basically a hybrid print/video journalist – though the campaign budged when the network threatened to withhold its cameras as well.

With increasingly negative press coverage over these events, the campaign eventually allowed Holmes into the Karzai event for a whopping 29 seconds, and has now agreed to let her cover the next two “sprays” before Palins’ meetings with Colombian President Uribe and former U.N. Secretary of State Kissinger. Earlier in the day, the networks had voted to ban any use of photographs and videos from the event, to protest the lack of editorial presence and deny the McCain-Palin campaign of a free photo op.

This is not the way to keep your base happy. And when the media’s your base, if the base ain’t happy, your coverage is gonna suck. And if your coverage sucks… Let’s just say you’d better hope to fuck that the American public suddenly loses all concern for the economy, health care, the war in Iraq, the scandal-plagued fuckwit you chose as a veep, and everything else, because reporters are going to take a fuck of a lot of satisfaction in telling Americans just how toxic your history is, and how insane your vision for this country would be.

It’s about fucking time America got to hear the truth.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

There’s one Senate Democrat, at least, who’s not willing to give the Bushies carte blanche to rob taxpayers:

Over the weekend, Paul Glastris had an interesting item, explaining the temptation on the part of some in Washington to line up behind the Paulson bailout plan, not necessarily because it’s wise or prudent, but because it seems like the only idea on the table to prevent the complete meltdown of the financial world.

To that end, the Washington Post’s Sebastian Mallaby explored some competing approaches to the Bush’s administration’s no-strings, no-questions, no-oversight $700 billion proposal, and this morning, Sen. Chris Dodd (D) of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, took a big step in the right direction with a competing plan of his own.

The legislation requires Treasury to take an equity stake equal to the purchase price of the assets being bought. If the company isn’t publicly traded, the government would take senior debt instead, placing it in the front of the line of debt holders for repayment in the event of a bankruptcy.

Dodd’s proposal also would create a five-member oversight board to supervise the Treasury secretary’s purchase and sale of distressed mortgage debt.

It would consist of the chairmen of the Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as two members from the financial industry designated by congressional leaders.

The board would be authorized to set up a so-called credit review company consisting of Treasury employees to study the soundness of the purchases. Under the plan, the government would be required to obtain an equity stake equal to the value of the debt that is purchased from the companies, including those whose shares are not publicly traded. The Treasury secretary would also be required to issue weekly public reports on the amount of assets bought and sold by the U.S.

Dodd is proposing to penalize executives who take inappropriate or excessive” risks. The executive compensation and severance packages could be reduced if that is “in the public interest,” the proposal says. It would also force executives to give back profits they earned that were based on company accounting measures that are later found to be inaccurate.

The Politico has more on Dodd’s provisions, including extending authority to bankruptcy judges to restructure mortgages for homeowners facing foreclosure.

Much, much better. Now let’s see how long it takes Republicons to force Dems to cave by screaming bloody murder and election mayhem.

Bush, of course, wants nothing less than full capitulation:

Today, the White House released a statement criticizing Congress’s potential plan to limit CEO compensation at the companies the federal government is bailing out, firmly standing against any “punitive measures”:

We certainly understand and are sympathetic to the sentiment regarding the pay of CEOs and senior management of these firms, but we have to focus on the problem, and the problem is that we need these firms to participate in the program and sell us this debt. Having punitive measures would provide a disincentive for firms to participate, and that would make the program much less likely to succeed.

CEO compensation and corporate governance in public companies are very important issues — especially when receiving taxpayer support — but we need to be focused on fixing this problem in our markets right now. We can and should return to those issues once we get this legislation passed.

President Bush also released another statement earlier today warning Congress against inserting any “unrelated provisions” — such as help for struggling homeowners — in the $700 billion Wall Street bailout.

I think we should all tell himself to fuck himself with a baseball bat. Aluminum. Pre-heated. When he says we can revist these issues later, what he means is, “Give me unlimited power so I can tell you to fuck off when you try to take it back again.”

And how’s McCain doing as a “take on the crooks on Wall Street” rhetoric? Not too good:

The only consistent element of John McCain’s recent rhetoric on economic issues is that he’s just not thinking things through. In
the latest example, McCain has been, in true populist style, railing against “golden parachutes” for CEOs.

The more lavish compensation packages are part of McCain’s economic pitch, the more likely he’ll face questions about former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s golden parachute. And yet, as of this morning, he was apparently caught completely off guard.

On NBC’s “Today,” Meredith Vieira told McCain, “You have said, senator, that there are a lot of reasons for this financial crisis, but you have said, bottom line, it’s those fat cats. It’s the greed of Wall Street. And you said, you promised … to crack down on CEOs who walk away with huge severance packages. And yet the person that up until recently was your public face really on your economic policies was Carly Fiorina…. She was fired in 2005. But she left with what I think was a $45 million golden parachute while 20,000 of her employees were laid off. She’s an example of exactly t
he type of person you say is at the root of the problem.”

McCain replied, “I don’t think so.” When pressed, he added, “I think she did a good job as CEO in many respects. I don’t know the details of her compensation package.”

Reminded that Fiorina received a $45 million golden parachute after being fired while 20,000 of her employees were laid off, McCain stumbled a bit before concluding, “I don’t know the details of what happened.”

This man is an absolute fucktard. I just hope my fellow Americans aren’t stupid enough to fall for the empty populist bullshit.

I am not, however, holding my breath.

But let’s see if we can get this simple message through: A VOTE FOR McCAIN IS A VOTE AGAINST AMERICA.

That should be easy enough for even the lowest information voters to grasp.

Today’s opining on the public discourse.

The verdict is in on Paulson’s “Let’s Bail Out the Idiots on Wall Street With No Oversight!” deal, and it is this: fuck no.

Hilzoy, in fact, is pissed:

Deciding what to do about the present financial crisis is beyond anything remotely resembling my expertise. However, like Steve Benen, I’ve been reading around, and I can’t find a single decent economist who likes the plan. That scares me, since I expect that the political dynamics will go something like this: Paulson has proposed a plan; not to accept it would deeply damage confidence in the markets and make things much worse, regardless of whether it’s
a good plan or not; therefore, it will be passed. I hope the Democrats try to get some decent regulation and structural reform for all that money.

In the meantime, I do have a few other reactions:

First: throughout all this, I’ve been torn between believing in market discipline and wanting to avoid moral hazard on the one hand, and thinking that of course that commitment flies out the window if we’re seriously threatened with economic collapse, on the other. But it’s worth
remembering that we could have avoided having to choose between these unfortunate options. All we needed to do was have people in government who believed in good regulation.

Second: if anyone ever tells me that Republicans are the party of fiscal discipline ever again, I will either dissolve in laughter or bite their heads off. I don’t know which. You have been warned.

Third: in particular, if any Republican ever tells me that a hundred million or so is just too much to pay to make sure that kids have health insurance, I will definitely bite his or her head off.

Fourth: I do not want to hear people tell me that regulation cripples the economy, unless they are willing to admit that a lack of regulation can also cripple the economy. Not ever. I don’t understand why anyone is so much as tempted to think that “regulation” is good or bad, as a whole: to me, that’s like being for or against “things” or “people”. Some regulations are
good, some are bad; obviously, we want people in government who can tell the difference, and implement regulatory systems that work well. However, altogether too many of my fellow citizens were willing to listen to ideologues, and now we all get to pay for their mistakes.

Fifth: if Obama wins, he and the Democrats will, in all probability, have to be the grownups once again. Reagan spent us blind; Clinton got us out of debt again. Now Bush has spent us even blinder, and we will be tempted, yet again, to put our ideas and aspirations on hold for the sake of the country.

I would like to hear one Republican, just once, acknowledge this fact.

Good fucking luck with that.

And the Republicons are up to their usual stupid tricks: the sky is falling, only they can save us, give us unlimited power and money or else. Oh, and fuck the little guys:

Congress and the administration are currently in negotiations over a $700 billion legislative package to relieve financial institutions of their bad mortgage-based assets. At issue is
to what extent the package should also aid Americans facing foreclosures. “We must insulate Main Street from Wall Street and keep people in their homes by reducing mortgage foreclosures,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

On ABC’s This Week today, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) rejected relief for Main Street, labeling it simply “partisan politics” and saying that it doesn’t “need to be part of this
package…”

[snip]

Boehner needs to wake up if he thinks help for Americans facing foreclosure is unnecessary because of last year’s housing bill. Foreclosure filings last month increased 27 percent compared to the same month a year ago. Homeless advocacy groups are “reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation” in part because of rising foreclosures.

Direct relief for the middle-class and Americans struggling to stay in their homes should be a necessary part of the bailout package. Ed Paisely of the Center for American Progress explained:

The legislative package that moves rapidly through Congress to implement Paulson’s new plan should also include expanded unemployment benefits and heating assistance for low-income families, increased food stamps, and assistance for states in providing health coverage to families in need during these difficult times. … It would not be right if the rescue only rescues firms and not families.

President Bush also hinted at opposition to direct help for Main Street in a press conference yesterday, stating, “I think most leaders would understand we need to get this done quickly…the cleaner the better.”

Yeah. Bush would know all about clean… and taking responsibility, and all that. After all, he’s done such a bang-up job so far. Think Progress has the list of egregious Bush mis-management of the taxpayer dollar. It is far too long to reproduce here.

I hope the Dems locate their spines, and tell the Cons to go piss up a rope, because this bailout package is nothing more than corporate robbery. Bush and his buddies want to rape this country to death.

Don’t let them.

McCain, unlike Obama, hasn’t come up with a single coherent thing to say in all of this. It’s not surprising. After all, he’ll feel no pain in this economy whatsoever. He’s trying to portray himself as the common man, but how common
is this:

That’s a lot of cars.

When you have seven homes, that’s a lot of garages to fill. After the fuss over the number of residences owned by the two presidential nominees, NEWSWEEK looked into the candidates’ cars. And based on public vehicle-registration records, here’s the score. John and Cindy McCain: 13. Barack and Michelle Obama: one.

One vehicle in the McCain fleet has caused a small flap. United Auto Workers president Ron Gettelfinger, an Obama backer, accused McCain this month of “flip-flopping” on who bought daughter Meghan’s foreign-made Toyota Prius. McCain said last year that he bought it, but then told a Detroit TV station on Sept. 7 that
Meghan “bought it, I believe, herself.” (The McCain campaign did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

A month ago, the McCain campaign launched a television ad that told voters, “Life in the spotlight must be grand, but for the rest of us times are tough.” And the obvious response to McCain continues to be, “What do you mean, ‘us’?”

There is no us, here. And Sarah Palin? Will she be able to answer some of our burning questions? Fuck that – she can’t even face Joe Biden in an open fucking debate:

This may be an elaborate effort to manage expectations, but it seems more likely the McCain campaign is genuinely worried about Sarah Palin’s ability to handle a nationally televised debate.

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin Friday, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate, advisers to both campaigns said Saturday.

At the insistence of the McCain campaign, the Oct. 2 debate between the Republican nominee for vice president, Gov. Sarah Palin, and her Democratic rival,
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., will have shorter question-and-answer segments than those for the presidential nominees, the advisers said. There will also
be much less opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the running mates.

McCain advisers said they had been concerned that a loose format could leave Ms. Palin, a relatively inexperienced debater, at a disadvantage and largely on the defensive. […]

Fuck the Cons. We need adults in charge now.