At one point, several minutes into the session, Obama said it was time to hear from McCain. According to a Republican who was there, all he said was, "I support the principles that House Republicans are fighting for." Some at the table took that to mean the conservatives alternative proposal, which stands little chance of passage.
So, this is all McCain had to contribute?
A White House summit meeting on Thursday meant to shore up John McCain's shaky campaign "devolved into a contentious shouting match." And that's how McCain's own campaign described it.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson begged Democratic participants not to disclose how badly the meeting had gone, dropping to one knee in a teasing way to make his point according to witnesses.
And when Paulson hastily tried to revive talks in a nighttime meeting near the Senate chamber, the House's top Republican refused to send a negotiator.
What a bunch of fucking children.
http://news.aol.com/article/white-house-summit-ends-on-sour-note/187754?icid=200100397x1210062306x1200628005
Posted by Judith at September 26, 2008 04:36 AMThe good part is that McLame has "maverick-ed" himself into a corner with his latest campaign stunt. The smart thing is that his current escapades has people talking about the debate vice how friggin idiotic his running mate is...remember her? Ms. Moose Lady?
Here is his dilemma: if he sides with the renegade house repubugs, Rep Boner and his cohorts, he almost certainly kills the negotiations. If that happens, more banks fail due to liquidity issues, which makes him look bad. If sh goes along with the Paulson/Bush and the Dems, he looks like crap to conservatives. Yeah!
McLame/Moose Lady '08
I'm still convinced Palin's not on the ticket come November 4th.
The McCain campaign has descended so deep into absurdity that nothing is impossible. Certainly they could come up with some deep sounding superficial reason for her to go away.
Posted by snark at September 26, 2008 06:26 AMI'm watching Dear Smirkface right now say we got a big problem, but we will pass a rescue plan. Probably spoke for about 1 minute if that. He didn't look serious or worried at all...his affect looked like at any minute he was going to LOL and this was no biggie...honestly. Strange affect to say at the least...perhaps trying to relay a sense of calm confident certainty? But I dunno...I don't trust the fool.
Don't be duped Dems...don't be duped...political theater is a repugnican artform and that's all they've ever cared about.
Now JOhn Harwood saying Dems might think it's politically safe to move without repukes and pass a bill because the House Repukes and McKeating5 -I don't know much about the economy is sustaining all the blame. Personally I don't buy that narrative at all...people don't like this bailout at all...they say eff Wall Street fatcats and Washington insiders who are responsible for this.
McWorsethanBush hasn't backed any plan at all...he's got no stance because he's afraid to be boxed into something...some mavericky bold leadership huh.
Posted by emal at September 26, 2008 06:51 AMWhat is this, Day 7 of Bailout Clownshow Circus?
Isn't it just Politics 101 that if the Congressional Repubs and their Prez don't agree on a piece of "crucial" legislation, then it shouldn't happen? No matter how big the claimed crisis?
If Bush/Paulson can't first round up almost every Repub member behind some bailout plan the admin supports, then it's simply absurd to think that Dems would or should pass massively unpopular legislation at the behest of the most hated and distrusted president in modern history. Duh.
Of course, it does seem that the Dem Leadership has repeatedly failed Politics 101, so on with Bailout Circus!
Posted by euzoius at September 26, 2008 07:15 AMRasmussen has Obama up 50-45 today, up 2 from yesterday. First time he's been up this high since July, first time at 50 since June. He's also closed to within 1 in todays' Rasmussen Florida poll and tied in Ohio.
It's one poll -- but Rasmussen is conservative with a small "c". They use smoothing algorithms to keep the spikes down, thus their day-to-day movement is less than most other polls, and they use voter models that rely more on past results than future trends. So, the trend is better news than, say, similar results from Gallup.
Remember: this trend was predicted long ago. We are 5 weeks from election day, and for many voters even closer due to early voting. Barring a very major event, the trend will continue.
Obama by 8-10%
Posted by Anonny at September 26, 2008 07:22 AMThere are several points to understand about the bailout crisis.
1) The ideological wing of the GOP has now fully broken from Bush.
Posters here and throughout the left blogosphere have seen this coming for years, of course. But there was a time, not long ago, when the ideological wing would go against their most basic principles if Bush just asked them to.
The House GOP revolt is proof. The bailout concept does go against their basic principles but now they are free from the Bush reigns and are able to stand up to him.
2) There is a real crisis, although the urgency is not clear.
As I posted on the previous thread, this is different than 2002 when Bush/Cheney got passage of AUMF by peddling bogus "intelligence" to Congress. Last Friday Bernake and Paulsen met with Congressional leaders and presented economic data that freaked them out. The key difference between now and 2002 is that the economic data can be verified by Congress -- they have full access to all the same information. And I'm sure their staffs have verified the problem.
We don't know the urgency of the crisis, though, and Congress does need to make sure that the solution will address the crisis without having worse side effects.
3) The deal they came up with is probably "pretty good".
We still don't have full buy-in from a a lot of economists, so I'd like them to revisit the concerns of people like Krugman, who in his blog today finds himself in rare agreement with some conservative economists in terms of their detailed objections.
Nevertheless the deal does involve oversights, appropriate restrictions, and most importantly equity for the taxpayer. The last means that isn't just an outlay of $250B now and maybe more later, but instead an investment that will return some of that outlay back to the treasury (and should return quite a bit, if the market rebounds). This is greatly improved from what was on the table last weekend.
4) The Bush administration is negotiating in good faith, unless we later learn they are secretly working with the House GOP (and all indications are they are not). They have compromised on every point the Democrats raised, in stark contrast to their my-way-or-the-highway stance they have taken on every issue until now. Could this be due to Rove's departure?
5) The House GOP leadership did not communicate with their rank-and-file.
This failure on the House GOP leadership part is almost criminal. They let the negotiations continue for 4 days without raising or addressing any of the concerns of their rank and file members. *This* more than anything caused the problem yesterday. I suspect that the House GOP is so used to their membership falling in lockstep on everything that their concensus-building skills have atrophied.
6) McCain is a non-factor.
He showed up late, didn't know the original proposal, the resulting deal, or the House GOP objections. He's clueless on this topic.
7) How McCain is perceived in the end depends in large part on the media and the Democrats.
Ironically McCain is being widely blamed for causing the disagreement, when in fact he had nothing to do with it. OTOH, there is some justice here, in that he tried to portray himself as the great savior, but while he was doing a day of free media talking about how he was going to sacrifice himself by "suspending" his campaign, he COULD have been in Washington working with the House GOP to address their underlying concerns.
That is, McCain did in fact have an opportunity to help make this a deal, but he passed it up in favor of talking about how he was going to help make the deal.
The irony is just too great.
Posted by Anonny at September 26, 2008 07:40 AMlove colbert, but he gets something wrong as do most media types or media wannabees - there is nothing presidential about campaigning. Campaigns are by their nature NOT governing. So what McCain said is not laughable in itself and if you are honest, you know that. What is laughble is that he was proven insincere so quickly. Usually it takes a week or 4/8 years. We must be in some serious shit for it to have only taken a couple of days for the media to have blown away the smoke.
Posted by the young Judith (tyj) at September 26, 2008 08:19 AMSpeaking of Colbert, he and John Stewart are priceless on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.
Posted by snark at September 26, 2008 08:27 AMsnark, thanks for the link, I've been hearing about that cover, and my issue doesn't arrive 'til Saturday! Woohoo!
Posted by iamcoyote at September 26, 2008 08:34 AMMcCain said he's gonna debate. Woohoo!
Posted by iamcoyote at September 26, 2008 08:43 AMI voted for Barack Obama today in Iowa. So did my wife. In fact I voted straight party. Never did that before.
So fuck you McCain and fuck his trolls who stink up this site.
Posted by The Creator at September 26, 2008 08:46 AMGood Christ, McTurd thinks he can say anything. With the bailout "deal" now more in doubt than ever, McDoof claims that "significant progress" was made yesterday. He also says "black is white"; Fox news agrees.
And, amazingly, he now is showing up for the debate, so I was wrong. But how can such lunacy possibly look to even the debased American voter? Who other than a wingnut can look on this goofiness with any kind of indulgence?
Pelosi appears to have made it her personal mission to pass the Bush Bailout. WTF?
Posted by euzoius at September 26, 2008 08:48 AMSo Johnny's back in the fray. I can't decide if I can watch this joke debate or not. I have to say the last two days have been interesting.
Posted by T2 at September 26, 2008 08:53 AMBravo Creator, Bravo! I am still working on getting people registered.
Posted by angryman at September 26, 2008 09:30 AMObama's lead has doubled in today's aggregate of daily tracking polls.
This should continue into next week following the debate. The majority of undecideds are basically done with Republicans and just looking for something to push them to Obama. The combination of McCain ineptness and Obama calm will do that trick.
Of course, our resident trolls will tell you that McCain is a master debator. However, Bill Kristol -- one of their idols -- continues to assert that Palin could easily beat Obama in a debate, so their capacity for self-delusion really has no limit.
Posted by Anonny at September 26, 2008 11:30 AMHe, he...!
We had t-shirts with that in high school. You had to guess I did debate back then.
Posted by Anonny at September 26, 2008 03:59 PM