Happy Hour Discurso

Today's opining on the public discourse.

Senator McCain goes to Washington to rescue the economy, and fucks everything up beyond recognition:

Earlier today, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress announced that they had reached a “fundamental agreement” on a government bailout of the nation’s financial system. But following a meeting at the White House this afternoon, which included Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL), there are “fears the Wall Street bailout deal is falling apart.”

In an interview with CNN this evening, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) said the meeting became “contentious” when “all of a sudden there was some new core agreement floating around, which no one had heard of before, until we sort of got to the White House.” Asked who introduced it, Dodd said it was McCain and the House Republicans...

[snip]

Aggravated from having “spent seven straight days at this,” Dodd said that the surprise proposal at the meeting “looked like…a rescue plan for John McCain for two hours.” “It took us away from the work we were trying to do today,” said Dodd.

I'm sure we're all just shocked. And you're going to be super duper shocked when you learn what McCain and his cronies' alternate proposal was:

CBS News reports that the alternative plan McCain floated would "include fewer regulations and more corporate tax breaks for businesses."

No one could have ever anticipated that, eh?

After a week of hearing it was lax regulations, rampant speculation, and predatory lending that led to these current dire straits, McCain spent a couple of hours sniffing out the real culprit:

During an interview with CBS’s Katie Couric yesterday, McCain said that the current financial crisis “is of the utmost seriousness and a crisis of enormous proportions.” But sticking to his mantra, McCain strangely cited earmarks as “one of the major reasons why we’re having difficulties”:

McCAIN: [W]e’ve got to take tough decisions and one of them is government spending by the way. One of the major reasons why we’re having difficulties is we let spending get completely out of control — earmark and pork-barrel projects. Senator Obama asked for over $900 million in earmarks pork-barrel projects, that’s not part of the answer thats part of the problem.

You'll love the list of other things earmarks are responsible for. They'll probably be blamed if he loses the election, too.

Sarah Palin knows exactly why it is that we should bail out Wall Street instead of Main Street:

The question was provocative, but hardly unexpected given recent events. Couric asked Palin, "Why isn't it better, Governor Palin,
to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries? Allow them to spend more, and put more money into the economy, instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?"

Palin, in a rambling and largely incoherent response, responded, "That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it's got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and getting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade -- we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation."

Apparently, McCain's advisors have filled her so full of talking points that they just sort of spurt out in a random, incoherent jumble when she opens her mouth. And she had a little help:

Worse, if you watch the clip, you might notice that Palin was intermittently referring to notes. In other words, this is the kind of response she offers on a question about the Wall Street bailout with
help.

No wonder the McCain campaign is terrified of having her go up against Joe Biden.

And speaking of campaign, remember how McCain suspended his? Heh, yeah:

So, what does a "suspended" campaign look like? As it turns out, it's eerily similar to a regular ol' campaign.

What have we learned since McCain suspended his presidential campaign?

* McCain campaign offices in battleground states are open and operating, just like yesterday.

* McCain's television ads are on the air, just like yesterday.

* McCain media flacks are all over the news networks, just like yesterday.

* McCain's campaign staffers are working, just like yesterday.

* McCain's campaign website is up, soliciting contributions and promoting McCain's message, just like yesterday.

* For the big White House meeting today, Barack Obama was told not to bring any campaign aides, so he's bringing a legislative assistant from his Senate staff. John McCain is bringing a campaign advisor.

That's an interesting definition of suspend. Hell, I thought that meant you don't do any fucking campaigning - after all, when we suspend someone's service, it means they don't get to make any calls, and when a school suspends a student, that means they don't attend any classes. We expect the word "suspend" to mean something akin to "stop." Alas, we were reading from Webster's, not The New Republicon Dictionary. In TNRD, it clearly states that "to suspend" means "to grandstand in an effort to snooker voters and trick your opponent into stopping their campaign dead while yours continues ahead full steam."

I think we might want to look up "honorable" while we're at it:

OK, let me get this straight. (I think I'm going to be using that phrase a lot over the next few days.) Mr. Bipartisan Statesman rushed off to Washington because it was urgent to knock some heads and agree on some principles that would help get the bailout plan moving. So Barack Obama proposed a list of principles that includes oversight, taxpayer protection, CEO pay restrictions, help for homeowners, and no earmarks. These are all things McCain says he supports. President Bush says he supports them as well. But McCain refused to sign on:

So the question is: Why wouldn't McCain agree to a fairly innocuous, Mom and apple pie set of conditions for a bill?

Democrats fear this morning that McCain is setting up a scenario in which he will vote against the bill, rally conservatives to his side and, most importantly, distance himself from both President Bush and Congress before the election.

That's Taegan Goddard. But why would Democrats be so suspicious that they're about to be double crossed? John McCain is too honorable
a man to do that, isn't he?

Hmmm. Let's see what TNRD sez.

Honorable(adj): A word used to describe a complete rat bastard desperately trying to fool people into trusting him so that he can then fuck them over royally.

It's all clear to me now.