SHRUB AND MCCAIN MAKE SENATE SEE SENSE, SAVE USA!

Apart from the somewhat surreal idea of Henry Paulson on his knees begging (and the extreme unlikelyhood that anyone said 'get up off your knees and give us something more substantial than a blowjob') the most interesting things about the White House crisis meeting was the reaction of John McCain and some of the Republican right.

The latter are against the bailout for the simple reason that, particularly if taxpayers actually get the equity position the Congressional proposal included, it's SOCIALISM. In fairness, Senator Jim Bunning (pictured above) also believes any bailout would be creeping communism, and appears to be the kind of true believer who is willing to follow the baloney about free markets all the way to the crash, while ignoring the government handouts that made big business big. Unless you believe guys like him are just holding out so they can tell their constitutents that they fought til the end, got dragged into the plan by the democrats but fought to get them whatever benefits may accrue. It's like they've been pushed out of a plane and refuse to open a parachute because they believe the law of gravity doesn't exist. Which, since many of them are creationists, they may not. Gravity, like financial markets, is not self-correcting.

The other funny thing was John McCain insisting on skipping campaigning to sit in on the meetings and then keeping shtum throughout, and to the press afterwards, to the point where even Joe Lieberman couldn't speak for him. (BTW: Is Lieberman angling for Secretary of State, or National Security Advisor in a McCain cabinet?). Anyone who might suggest that Schmidt and Rove have the Manchurian Candidate positioned to make some political and debate hay out of the crisis would surely be 'haters', as the straight talking expresso wouldn't tonight try to claim that he found the middle ground, or protected Americans, or brought everyone together, especially when no one could contradict him except with facts and not until after the debate. When you argue facts during a debate, you just seem churlish, which Goebbelsian style Rove surely learned watching Nixon. In a way, I'm glad I can't see the debate: I keep hearing fiddles and smelling smoke.