Yeah, I trust you....

I'd love to know how effective this Wachovia add this morning on WSJ.com is?

I know it takes time to actually pull ads, but sheesh.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Wasn't our fault! It was the crazy lady!

Here is the guy who is responsible for the bailout failure trying to spin the blame:



Nice, huh? So you get to blame Nancy Pelosi for the fact that you guys:

• screwed everything up with your deregulation


• screwed everything up with your lack of oversight on the regulation that was left


• continue to screw everything up by prefering to let everything melt down than pass something that your administration says will help.

The Democrats are talking partisan. You, John Boehner, are acting partisan.

Assuming we don't get thrown back to the stone age, history will show that both sides did stupid stuff here but one party actually let everything go to complete hell because their feelings were hurt.

Oh, and buy the way, twelve more votes still wouldn't have given the eighty that you promised John, which was down from the 100 that the Democrats originally insisted on.

Finally, I don't think that it helped that Roy Blunt was back there smirking the entire time before he spoke. If he wasn't smirking, than I guess he is even more obnoxious looking than usual today.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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"borderline illiterate"

Noah Millman at The American Scene:

There are lots and lots of reasons not to like this bill. But most of those reasons are Democratic talking points. The GOP alternative proposal was borderline illiterate.

I’m writing this in haste, without a lot of reflection. But the whole way this has played out has been something of a watershed moment for me. There is only one party in Congress that thinks we are in a financial crisis, only one party in Congress with a functioning leadership.

I simply cannot express it better myself.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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It dies.

The Republican party in the House of Representatives have secured their place in history. They have killed a bailout bill.

Yes, there were plenty of Democrats who voted against it but that was mostly because the Republicans could only produce a measly sixty-odd votes. Without more significant support, there was not going to be significant support from Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.

Oh sure, you can try to blame conservative Republicans like Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). The blame really belongs with one particular person who could not suck it up and live up to what the moment demanded: John Boehner (R-OH).

The allegedly esteemed "leader" of the Republicans in the House of Representatives esentially said the the bill had his support and he encouraged people to vote for it if their conscience allowed it.

Note to John McCain: If you want an example of inability to lead, John Boehner is your boy!

I'll have more later but basically, my initial read is that if Boehner had pushed it there would have been enough Republican votes to attract the Democratic votes that wanted to make sure there was cover. It could have been more like 280-153 if the Reps got closer to 100 votes and the Dems who wanted to make sure of Republican support came out of hiding.

John Boehner is to blame.

The result. The Democrats will now introduce a bill that they like and that they feel they can get passed. The Republicans have lost their chance to influence this.

Yes, that means they can wash their hands of this. That means they can't be blamed for it if it fails. It also means they are on the hook if everything melts down. And they can't claim the credit if it works.

More later, I'm sure.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

Update: For those who want it, here is what Boehner actually said before the vote:

“I am encouraging every member of our conference whose conscience will allow them to support this bill,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader.

Wow, now that's leadership!;->

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Obama wins?

I am rather amazed by the reaction of the pundits on MSNBC. Almost universally, with the exception of Gene Robinson, they seem to think that John McCain won the debate on 'points'. I did not get that impression at all.

Interestingly, nearly every one of them, David Gregory, Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan, Andrea Mitchell etc. qualified their assessment with the idea that 'stylistically' McCain lost points. It's the old "Well I think he won but people might have thought he looked like an old jerk." cover your a$$ excuse. The media didn't realize until the next day that Richard Nixon lost to John Kennedy in that debate in 1960. They thought Nixon may have won and certainly didn't do worse than draw. They didn't realize the reaction that people would have to his appearance. Everyone seems to be instinctively getting cover just in case they misread tonight.

I think that will have a lot to do with how people perceived John McCain tonight. He never looked at Barack Obama. Never addressed him directly, despite Jim Lehrer's entreaties to do so. He always is stiff, to some extent as a result of his war injuries, but he seems even more so at times tonight.

It was mentioned repeatedly, on many blogs and news items throughout the day, that he needed to avoid that 'gotcha' smirky laugh of his. It looks creepy. He didn't avoid it enough.

To be perfectly honest, I found myself caught up in how McCain looked saying things rather than what he was saying more than once.
Continue reading ^>> That isn't good. I wonder if someone with a more apolitical eye might have been so affected as well?

Beyond the appearance issue, I think Obama did, at the very least, match up to McCain on most of the questions presented. Indeed, on many of them, he kicked his butt.

McCain revealed very little of how he would govern tonight, beyond some very broad strokes. And yes, saying you will cut all earmarks, qualifies as a broad, not to mention unrealistic, stroke.

Obama actually answered the questions, at least, for the most part. Several times, he had to bring the discussion back to the point at hand because McCain tried to control the narrative and had taken a sharp left or right turn with his answer.

McCain, on several occasions, told stories instead of answering the question. I say instead of because when he was done with the story, he would invariably continue with an answer on an analogous topic which was more to his liking than the original question.

The people who had to be convinced tonight wanted to know what these two men would do when they become President of the United States of America. If they want to know who you are, that question would apply far more to Senator Obama than Senator McCain. Nevertheless, Senator McCain persisted in telling them who he is rather than what he would do.

I think that because the electorate is looking for that, this debate may have indeed been disastrous for John McCain. If you were looking for specifics, you got none from his side.

Obama was (to steal from Andrew Sullivan) commanding. He had a firm grasp of every issue thrown his way. I think he gave a few too many derisive chuckles at McCain's responses. He also needs to be more aware of his facial expressions when he is listening to McCain. The man may have said a few doozies but you need to control how you react and respond more diligently.

I think the amorphous middle/independent/undecided people liked what they saw and got from Barack Obama tonight. I don't think even those who were leaning towards John McCain got anything they were looking for. He secured veterans, neocons (with his neocon view of Russia and Ukraine), and probably reinforced the social conservatives a little. That's not a gain, that's treading water.

Even if you posit that he won the debate tonight there is the problem that he needed to win it by a lot more than he did. I don't think he won it at all. That is a big problem for his campaign.

If you take the Sarah Palin - Katie Couric interview as evidence of how the Vice-Presidential debate might go, than this campaign is in some serious trouble.

I have complete confidence that somehow, someway, John McCain will find something to 'stir up a hornet's nest' with in the next week or so. It's what he does best. Maybe, sometime, it'll actually help his campaign. But if it isn't soon, although it may be his only hope, he may bury himself deeper than it is possible to recover from.


Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Is McCain Gaining or Losing?

You know, the way it was presented on the front page of the Plain Dealer this morning in Cleveland wasn't good for John McCain. Big picture of Rep. Barney Frank and the gang with the word "DEAL", then, down at the fold, big picture of the White House meeting with Senator John McCain and company, and the words "NO DEAL".

I don't think that anyone remains under the illusion that John McCain went to Washington to seek an apolitical resolution to the financial crisis. I don't think anyone remains under the illusion that John McCain has 'suspended' his campaign. Not with the three major interviews last night. Not with the commercials that were still airing in prime time here in Northeast Ohio.

We had an agreement. Then John McCain landed, had Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) trot out some plan that, from what little we know of it, bore absolutely no resemblance to anything that has been seriously discussed for the last week. Oh yes, I know what you are going to say: "Wait! That wasn't John McCain! That was Republican leader John Boehner who made Cantor come up with the proposal!" Yeah, right, McCain had nothing to do with it. And John McCain still has a bridge to nowhere that he wants to sell you.

On it's face, the plan Cantor and the House conservatives are proposing makes some sense. It is basically a guarantee of the securities instead of outright purchase. There are a couple of problems though.

As Paul Bedard points out:


Continue reading ^>>

House leaders said that Treasury looked at the insurance idea and initially liked it but then went for the easier fix: Just buy bad loans. House Republicans, however, have balked at that plan, hence Boehner's call to Cantor to drum up a new idea. Insiders say that the insurance plan isn't exactly an alternative to the Bush-Paulson plan because Paulson's blueprint is written so broadly that the insurance proposals could be folded into the larger plan, leaving it up to Treasury to figure out which program to apply to each bad loan.

So, you see, Treasury looked at this, decided it was a little too narrow for what they might need and opted for the full monty instead. Now, I would like to point out that no one really knows what is needed here. I am not in favor of giving the entire farm to Hank Paulson either but exactly where is our choice? That is why the Democrats insisted on the oversight and the restrictions. Paulson does not have a track record of asking for too much lately. Too little? Maybe. Too much? No. So why are we going to cut him completely off? He, unlike most of the House members, has some idea of what needs to happen here.

Another problem. The BIG reason for doing this quickly is to free up credit markets that, at the moment, rival Arctic glaciers. The insurance plan would inject no liquidity. It might keep banks from failing. But only for now. Without freeing up the credit markets, things will undoubtedly continue to get worse and your going to find Secretary of the Treasury Chris Dodd/Phil Gramm knocking on Congress' door again in the next six months.

No matter what. I don't think that this is playing well for McCain. I realize that most American's don't like the bailout plan. But, realistically, all he did by going to Washington was hold it up. Something very similar to what was agreed to yesterday will be what gets approved in the end. If Nancy Pelosi can't get Boehner and McCain to provide the Republican votes, they will just have to pass it by Sunday anyway and frame it as: "Well, they got us in this mess, I guess we have to get us out."

So it turns out that John McCain injected presidential politics into the mix, thus making it a little more complicated to get any sort of deal done. John McCain is part of the problem with blocking a solution, regardless of it's popularity. John McCain is still trying to postpone the debate so he can continue to get in the way in Washington.

I don't know. I don't see leadership here. I see someone desperately trying to get into the spotlight and hoping he isn't getting the spotlight at a bad time.


Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Deal

Well, despite the best efforts of George W. Bush and John S. McCain, it would appear as if Congress has come up with a bailout package that everyone can live with, at least, well enough. Via MSNBC.

Like many thought, Senators McCain and Obama weren't needed.

Key lawmakers said at midday that few difficulties actually remained.

“There really isn’t much of a deadlock to break,” said Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Makes you wonder about who made the right move here. I suspect it wasn't the senior Senator from Arizona.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Finally, he appears

Well, at least he remembered that he is the President of the United States. George W. Bush will address the nation this evening at 9 PM.

Whether George W. Bush's failure to to address the nation up until now is due to an attempt to wash his hands of the situation or an utter failure to understand that this was a serious situation that warranted a national address is still up in the air. At least, he is finally doing it.

I found this particular quote.....precious, for lack of a better word:

Press secretary Dana Perino said the president wants to tell the American people how the crisis affects them and help them understand the depth of the problem.

One question. Doe he understand the depth of the problem? I wonder.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Talking your way out of the deal of the century

Here's the deal. You and your wife have lost your jobs and you've also lost your life savings with some really bad gambles in the markets. You are very likely going to lose your cars, your home, and everything that you own.

Suddenly, Hank Paulson calls you up and says, look, no worries. We'll spend up to 50 million to buy those crappy investments off of you, allow you to get back up on your feet and get going again.

This, however, isn't good enough for you. It isn't enough that the government will buy the crappy securities at their nominal market value of $3,000,000 dollars. It isn't even enough that they will buy them from you for a premium, giving you a wash on the deal, at $17,000,000 dollars. Nope, they made the mistake of mentioning $50,000,000.

So now, you get a wink, wink, nudge, nudge from Paulson but that pesky Congress might get in the way. So you, and your other friends in "The Incredibly Poor Judgement Investment Club" who got this offer, now have your lobbyists attack, saying we need whatever we say we need. There can be no oversight. Only we know what can help us. All the while keeping your eyes on that big fat top end number.

That folks is what is happening right now. The banks, having been handed a golden goose, now want a golden calf. And they'll keep the goose too, thank you very much.

It is no longer a question of whether the governent will give it to them. We already have the standard 'pass it or else' line from the White House. The question now is whether Congress will give it to them. Given Congress' record of passing the buck and voting for the allowance of sweeping executive discretion in such things as the war on Iraq and FISA, I, sadly, have remarkably little faith that Congress will do what it should.

I am, also, not alone in either thinking that this proposal from Hank Paulson is both too sweeping and not accountable enough.


Continue reading "Talking your way out of the deal of the century"^>>
As early as Saturday, as details started leaking out, many started jumping off the ship. Josh Marshall at TPM on Saturday night:

Mulling this more and listening to the insights in your emails, the key clearly is how much the government pays for these distressed assets. They may be bad debts. But that doesn't mean they have no value at all. Bought at the right prices and given time on the books -- which the government is uniquely in a position to allow them to do -- the government could even turn a profit on some of them. But the key is at what price they're bought and whose get bought. That seems like precisely the kind of process that requires oversight and accountability to make sure the taxpayer doesn't get fleeced.

Paul Krugman was ambivalent about all of this when I saw him on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday night. He was no longer ambivalent by Saturday afternoon:

Here’s the thing: historically, financial system rescues have involved seizing the troubled institutions and guaranteeing their debts; only after that did the government try to repackage and sell their assets. The feds took over S&Ls first, protecting their depositors, then transferred their bad assets to the RTC. The Swedes took over troubled banks, again protecting their depositors, before transferring their assets to their equivalent institutions.

The Treasury plan, by contrast, looks like an attempt to restore confidence in the financial system — that is, convince creditors of troubled institutions that everything’s OK — simply by buying assets off these institutions. This will only work if the prices Treasury pays are much higher than current market prices; that, in turn, can only be true either if this is mainly a liquidity problem — which seems doubtful — or if Treasury is going to be paying a huge premium, in effect throwing taxpayers’ money at the financial world.

And there’s no quid pro quo here — nothing that gives taxpayers a stake in the upside, nothing that ensures that the money is used to stabilize the system rather than reward the undeserving.

Part of the reason everyone is becoming increasingly uneasy is because of things like this in Sunday's New York Times:

The scope of the bailout grew over the weekend. As recently as Saturday morning, the Bush administration’s proposal called for Treasury to buy residential or commercial mortgages and related securities. By that evening, the proposal was broadened to give Treasury discretion to buy “any other financial instrument.”

Elrod has a good post on opposition to the MOAB (Mother of all Bailouts) over at The Moderate Voice and Andrew Sullivan is "more than a little queasy."

Meanwhile, neither Obama nor McCain seems particularly enthused by any of this.

McCain seems to be trying to continue to cultivate a persona that is against the grain for him. He is an anti-regulator. He seems to have settled on the idea that he just doesn't trust any Republicans currently in office. He attacked SEC Chairman Chris Cox earlier in the week. Now he doesn't trust Hank Paulson:

"Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person. This arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable," McCain told an Irish-American group in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state.

I'm not disagreeing with him. I just think he and his campaign are walking a tightrope on this one. His anti-regulation, pro-free market natural approach to things may cause him to mis-step badly here if they don't be very, very careful. Given his gaffes of the last two weeks (we won't count the huge one on August 29), that might be a very dangerous course to take.

This part of that MSNBC article was particularly interesting:

In a statement to reporters, McCain urged the creation of a bipartisan oversight board to review the government bailout rather than entrusting Paulson with complete power to craft it. He said the board should be headed by a trusted financial steward like billionaire financier Warren Buffett, and said former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be involved as well. Both Romney and Bloomberg made enormous fortunes in business ventures before entering politics.

"I believe we need a high level of oversight and an oversight board to impose real criteria for those who need help and those who do not and that we have a careful steward of the taxpayer's dollars," McCain said.

Yup. That will go over real well with Main Street. Get Warren Buffett (I'll give you that the average American probably is OK with him), and add in two independently wealthy politicians who made huge amounts of money on Wall Street to help guard Main Street from getting ripped off here. Yeah, right, we'll get back to you on that one. In other news, people also think McCain has a bridge to sell them.

That also skips over the fact that, again, in a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, John McCain wants to form yet another time consuming commission.

Obama, according to the piece:

Obama ticked off seven conditions that he believed should be imposed on the Paulson proposal, joining some fellow congressional Democrats in raising warning flags and signaling the bailout mechanism might not make it out of the legislature by week's end as demanded by the Bush administration.

Obama said any bailout must include plans to recover the money, and protect working families and big financial institutions and be crafted to prevent such a crisis from happening again.

Again, Obama is offering at least some specific safeguard ideas. McCain is decrying putting too much power into Paulson's hands and recommending a commission of experts (albeit ones who made plenty of money on Wall Street.)

Finally, President George W. Bush, presiding over a financial crisis that rivals Herbert Hoover, had this to say:

"Obviously, there will be differences over some details, and we will have to work through them," Bush said, but "the whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to our capital markets, businesses, our housing sector, and retirement accounts.

"Failure to act would have broad consequences far beyond Wall Street. It would threaten small business owners and homeowners on Main Street."

Translation: "Let's see if I can pressure Congress into writing one last blank check before I bolt this place for Crawford!"

I think, given the current state of opinion in general, that it is extremely unlikely that the administration, Republican members of Congress and the bankers (notice how all of these groups want the same thing?) will get a "clean" bill free of oversight or regulatory powers. It is also highly unlikely that Treasury will get the get out of jail free card that they wanted inserted with language prohibiting 'judicial review.'

The example I started with remains valid. You have to cut the greed off at the knees. It is ingrained in anyone who works on Wall Street. If there is money there, they are trained to find a way to get it. It is what they do.


That is not what this bailout is about. And that is why some serious oversight is needed if we are to attempt this endeavour. If the oversight is included, give it a shot. If it is not, let them rot. We will probably suffer less long term damage by letting them hang by their own ropes than continuing to let them rob us blind.

The banks, by lobbying hard for a 'free and unfettered' authorization to the Treasury department are making us all look at them even more suspiciously. They are already getting a huge, absolutely massive, undeserved gift. Apparently, it isn't good enough unless it comes without strings. They may well find no gift if they continue this crap.

We can only hope that what does come out of all of this is a) enough to actually stem the tide of this crisis and b) not going to create a crisis of it's own. I share your uncertainty.



Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Race card? Not.

Karen Tumulty thinks this John McCain ad "played the race card":



Andrew Sullivan disagrees.

I wasn't sure about this claim. After all I don't particularly think that Barack Obama and Franklin Raines look 'sinister' as Tumulty comments. Michael Goldfarb has a rebuttal, albeit tinged with some hysteria, that makes some sense. I'd really like it if someone had a timeline for when the following video, the Jim Johnson ad, was posted, because I swear this video wasn't out until people started ripping into the Raines ad. It appears to have been posted several hours later, not at the same time (and, no, I am not insinuating that Goldfarb said it was the same time).



Either way, I think the "Fact Check" commercial had more racial overtones, as I stated at the time. (Although I still want to know why on earth they would bring up wolves with her record on that, lord only knows.) Here is that video, just for good measure:



Let's just stop looking for the race card. If and when it is played it will not be something we need to work on discerning.

I think it is just stupid that they used Franklin Raines. Listen to their justification on this (from Michael Goldfarb's post):

So we contacted Ms. Tumulty and told her of the multiple sources that tie Raines to Obama, including three separate instances in the Washington Post, none of which was ever challenged by Raines or the Obama campaign until yesterday.

Are any of those sources not the Washington Post? If so, would you mind informing the rest of the world. Beyond that, since when do you have to deny every minute untrue detail that is printed in every paper in order to make sure you are not associated with something.

You mean, if I slip an ad in the Classified section of the WaPo saying that John McCain has a standing invitation for Kim Jong Il to visit Sedona, print it three times over the course of a couple of months, and you guys don't deny it, it's true! Cool!!

Before that, he actually had the balls to say this:

Tumulty also takes Obama’s response, signed by Mr. Raines, at face value.

We are supposed to assume they are lying? How about you? Your campaign hasn't earned any 'truth' awards lately.

This is just like those crappy reporters who can't be bothered to pick up a phone to call someone and get a confirmation or denial. Basic crap folks. LOTS of reporters don't do this anymore. I don't know why on earth I would expect a major party presidential campaign to do that if the reporters can't be bothered to.

I think I agree with Sullivan, no racism here. But it all is really stupid.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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Who advises him...

Great new commercial for Obama. Keeps hammering the "John McCain admits he doesn't understand the economy" theme and combines it with who is advising him:



A fired CEO, an insulting former Senator and George Bush. Hmm... This should get some movement our way.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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What? Who me?!

To your right, you see the Chairman of the SEC, Christopher Cox. Today, coming straight out of left field, perhaps in the A-4 Skyhawk he flew in Vietnam, Senator John McCain said said:

“The Chairman of the SEC serves at the appointment of the President and in my view has betrayed the public's trust,” McCain said. “If I were President today, I would fire him.”

My first question on this is why? Did he create this situation. Should he have somehow 'regulated' harder. Wouldn't you, the formerly great deregulator, have been even more up his behind in general if he had? Why, exactly, does Christopher Cox get the blame for regulating companies the way Phil Gramm and yourself wanted them regulated ten years ago: laxly?

Second, to his credit, I don't think the current President of the United States in on board with this idea:

Asked to respond to McCain’s criticism of Cox, White House spokesperson Dana Perino told NBC News, “The chairman has the president's confidence.”

Third. Guess what. You can't fire him anyway! At least, technically (from ABC):

But the president does not have the power to fire the SEC chairman.

Commissioners of the following independent regulatory commissions cannot be removed by the president: the SEC, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Trade Commission.

Of course, that's no obstacle. Especially to a Republican:

The McCain campaign called protests that the president cannot literally "fire" an SEC commissioner "a foolish distinction."

"Not only is there historical precedent for SEC chairs to be removed," said McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds, "the president of the United States always reserves the right to request the resignation of an appointee and maintain the customary expectation that it will be delivered.”

So, can a president "fire" an SEC chairman? Not literally, no.

But colloquially, yes.

Lastly, are you sure that this is the best course of action to take at the moment? Sure it's full of 'leadership' and testosterone but I kind of agree with Jim Geraghty over at NRO (a rare occurrence):

I have a quibble, and it's similar to my objection to the "George Tenet should have been fired on September 12, 2001!" argument. Even if you can legitimately lay the blame at the feet of the official in question (easier for Cox than Tenet, I would argue) you're effectively promoting that person's lieutenant. This presumes the President doesn't have some perfect SEC Chairman/crisis manager in mind, and even then you've got to get that person through the confirmation process with showboating, table-pounding, preening Senators. You also are ensuring that everyone in the organization in question is focused on covering their butts instead of fixing the problem at hand.

On September 12, I wanted CIA employees focused on tracking down al-Qaeda, and devoting exactly 0 percent of their time to worrying about whether they would be fired or purged.

Very good point.

This demonstrates leadership in the sense that you made a snap decision that the head of the SEC should be fired. He isn't really responsible. The deregulation of the past decade and the greed of the coporate overseers, whether they be CEO's or board members, is responsible.

This isn't a "let's solve it" leadership decision. This is a "let's find the most convenient scapegoat" leadership decision. That's all you are doing. No problem solving to see here, move on, move on.

I hope you get just as much flack on this one as you are still getting for your José Zapatero gaffe. You deserve it.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.

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They can't run a company but....

Well, yesterday we had Carly Fiorina telling us that not only Sarah Palin, but also John McCain would not be able to run HP.

Let's look back at March, however (Reuters):

Warren Buffett said on Monday that he would be comfortable putting Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in charge of running a business..

Let's see: Fired Fortune 500 executive, who had some ethical lapses, says her guy (and gal) couldn't do the job she did; All time top 10 extremely successful business person says that Barack or Hillary could run one of his businesses. Hmm...

Now, to be fair, Warren did exclude the flagship of Berkshire Hathaway itself when making this statement but still!

Meanwhile, CNN reports that Carly has been exorcised from the campaign, at least for the moment:

A top McCain official contacted by CNN said, on condition on anonymity, "No big deal, but not how you get on the surrogate all-star team. Very Biden-like."

“This campaign source said Fiorina would be discouraged from additional media interviews.

Another top campaign adviser was far less diplomatic.

"Carly will now disappear," this source said. "Senator McCain was furious." Asked to define "disappear," this source said, adding that she would be off TV for a while – but remain at the Republican National Committee and keep her role as head of the party’s joint fundraising committee with the McCain campaign.

Fiorina was booked for several TV interviews over the next few days, including one on CNN. Those interviews have been canceled.

Not good. But apparently she isn't completely exiled:

A third source said "it was another bad day for her, and important people are mad because the timing is horrible… But I would not necessarily buy the Siberia storyline."

After all, what are they going to do for the 'face' of their 'economic plan?' Bring back Phil Gramm?? LOL!!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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Dangerous Territory

Here is John McCain's new stance on regulation:



There's a problem here for our dear Senator McCain. He's been a passionate deregulator for a quarter of a century! He was still a passionate deregulator last week! From the Washington Post:

In 2002, McCain introduced a bill to deregulate the broadband Internet market, warning that "the potential for government interference with market forces is not limited to federal regulation." Three years earlier, McCain had joined with other Republicans to push through landmark legislation sponsored by then-Sen. Phil Gramm (Tex.), who is now an economic adviser to his campaign. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act aimed to make the country's financial institutions competitive by removing the Depression-era walls between banking, investment and insurance companies.
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That bill allowed AIG to participate in the gold rush of a rapidly expanding global banking and investment market. But the legislation also helped pave the way for companies such as AIG and Lehman Brothers to become behemoths laden with bad loans and investments.

McCain now condemns the executives at those companies for pursuing the ambitions that the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act made possible, saying that "in an endless quest for easy money, they dreamed up investment schemes that they themselves don't even understand."

He was complicit in allowing these companies to do the very things that he is now railing against. Put another way, if not for he and Phil Gramm, Lehman Brothers and AIG would not have been able to get into the trouble they got into because it would have been against the rules. John McCain and Phil Gramm took away those rules. Now we see why those rules were there. Now we see what happens without regulation.

He is trying to take the offensive here, but, if anyone calls him on it right now, he is like a sitting duck. He has to be called on this now, and hard. He has to be called on it before he establishes some type of 'regulator savior' image with the voters.

Show the voters how he created this. This wasn't even George W. Bush. This is on him. Hammer it in, over and over!

This is manna from heaven David Axelrod! Use it! Now!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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Hey, George? You can't throw them a bone?

Well, it's official folks, the Republican party ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin had exactly two days to celebrate the end of government intervention. They have been beside themselves with glee that the government finally said 'enough' with the Lehman Brothers crisis.

Well, as of tonight (via Reuters):

The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday, with the full support of the Treasury Department, authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend up to $85 billion to the American International Group (AIG).

And, how could they not. Indeed, with the number of tentacles that AIG has in worldwide finances, I'm sure Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson fielded all sorts of calls from finance ministers and central bank heads the last few days. This one had the potential to some serious damage to the entire world-wide monetary system. In other words, as you will hear from the money pundits tomorrow, this was a no-brainer.

Problem #1: You drew your line in the sand and had to call it a mere two days later. Dear lord! How much are we going to be on the hook for?

Problem #2: This problem isn't really all that important as it involves the electoral hopes of our dear friends Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin but it is more relevant subject matter for this blog. The problem involves how the 'government stay out of our business' theme that both of these 'mavericks' (or 'mavricks' if you're at the RNC) will now work out for these two.

Can you really argue that, after Paulsen and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke turned their backs on Lehman Brothers over the weekend, that this is excessive intervention? Maybe.

What McCain can't argue is that a lot of this can be laid squarely in his lap. He and his former cheif economic advisor, and author of what economic plan he does have, Senator Phil Gramm, are largely responsible for the deregulation that helped this crisis come about.

How is 'the deregulator' going to turn this mess around? Well, by calling for a commission, of course! NYT:

“We need a 9/11 commission, and we need a commission to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it,’’ he said. “And I know we can do it and how to do it.”

That's not leadership, that is kicking the can down the road in the middle of a hurricane. You know why, of course! Because he will have to admit his culpability in all of this if he calls BS on what the primary cause was. He can't do that, because he would like to get elected. Another example of his 'honor' and 'country first' mentality.

The press better start to call him on the fact that his deregulation was a key in all of this being able to happen.

Talk about the chickens coming home to roost at an inopportune time!

Let's see them put lipstick on this pig!

It's going to take a lot of lipstick. And it'll still be a pig.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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Hit Hard, Hit Fast

And, when possible, hit above the belt. This one counts as one of those left hooks after you've set him up a bit. Whether this commercial helps to start bringing Senator John McCain and his campaign down, well, we'll just a have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, here is what I'm talking about, the latest Obama commercial:



Simple, direct, repeats the gaffe over and over. Nicely done. Don't stop now Obama campaign. We're convinced you guys might be the real thing. Keep at it!

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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