I thought the House Republicans who tried to blame the failure on Nancy Pelosi's "partisan" speech, thus causing 12 of them to switch their votes, was ludicrous -- as did Barney Frank who lampooned them in one of his characteristic zingers.
But now I think that has even been surpassed by McCain's chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Zounds !!! It must be catching in the McCain campaign -- the inability to speak coherently about important issues.
This interview with MSNBC is worth watching or reading the transcript to see how absolutely looney they all have become: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/29/mccain-camp-blames-obama_n_130359.html
It's Nancy's fault -- but then it's really Obama's fault, but it's never clear how he even means that. See, John McCain worked the phones all day; he got the Republicans to the negotiating table. But he had to keep a low profile, because if it had looked like he would have been the key to its success, the Democrats would have killed the deal. "That's what happened today. They were not going to let McCain do the job that he was trying to do, deliver a bill to help the American people. The American people will lose as a result of this."
More about McCain's helpful role: "He took the process from dead in the water to a vote in the House of Representatives this morning. absolutely dead in the water, no hope whatsoever, a bill everyone condemned. This morning we had a vote only because of John McCain. That vote could have been successful, but the Democrats behaved poorly. That's too bad."
He never quite got back to explaining how it was Obama's fault, except this: "Where was Barack Obama today? If you look at what he said, he was praising the passage of the bill. Bill didn't pass."
So it's his fault? He praised the bill, said he supported it, and it didn't pass. So it's his fault? McCain keeps a low profile, and he's the victim of the bad Democrats who killed the bill rather than let him get credit for it. Obama keeps a low profile (in order to avoid injecting presidential politics into the process), and it's his fault it didn't pass.
This is McCain's chief economic adviser?????
You'd think he could at least do simple math. Economists deal with numbers, no? Democrats voted 140 yea, 95 nay; Republicans 65 yea, 133 nay. So it's the Democrats fault it didn't pass !!!!!!!
Sarah Palin, you're contagious.
Ralph
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3 comments:
Well, it is true that if the Dems had the courage of their convictions, they could have passed the bill with a simple majority of 235 - 198 (using your numbers). But they wanted bipartisan blame to go around in case the bailout didn't work, so they managed to "work" a split that prevented the bill from passing entirely on the back of the Dems.
Everyone is playing partisan politics with this bill. And emoting instead of thinking. Hence the blathering.
The more I read about this, the more I think the common (wo)man doesn't understand the workings of the modern economy. We are all operating on the models we learned back in the 70s or 80s. So, the lack of education on how this bailout is a rescue caused massive public outcry against it. I say a plague on both their houses.
OMG! I'm becoming a libertarian!
Not only the common wo(man) doesn't understand the workings of the modern economy -- not many of us highly educated folks do either.
I'm amazed at what I've learned in the past week. I had no idea what a house of cards it was. The whole concept of making a fortune out of making bad loans, then swapping them in credit-defaults instruments, and blah blah blah . . . just boggles the mind.
Word leaking out this morning is that Newt Gingrich is the one to blame for the bailout failure.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell is reporting that Newt stabbed Boehner in the back; that he was aggressively whipping up opposition behind the scenes, telling Republicans what a terrible deal it is, the end of democracy, it's socialism.
Then at the last minute, when he saw it was going to fail, he jumped in front of the opposite parade and issued a statement that, bad as it is, he would have voted for it were he still in office.
What's his game? Posturing, of course, and provocative; but to what purpose? On This Week Sunday, he was espousing such progressive ideas that Robert Reich said to him: "You're becoming a liberal democrat right here before our eyes."
He's a very bright, very articulate, but basically unprincipled politician.
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