QUOTE
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/comme...tem-946159.html
Rupert Cornwell: Stunning defeat of bill exposes failures of the US political system
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
...Then not only did a majority of Republicans disown their own president. After they sent the bailout compromise down in flames, those same Republicans then blamed the Democrats for their own disloyalty, accusing Speaker Nancy Pelosi of being too harsh in her criticism of their president. This despite the fact her Democrats, instinctively far less inclined to come to Wall Street's aid, had in fact done so.
Maybe Ms Pelosi should have been more restrained in her language. Maybe the head counters on both sides can be blamed for misjudging the balance of forces. More than a dozen Republicans were assumed to be in favour when they were not.
But in a deeper sense this is a crisis of the political system. The stately and endless process of electing a new president has produced a power vacuum at the worst possible moment.
Mr Bush's power, it has been conclusively demonstrated, is exhausted. Yet more than five weeks remain until election day – when either John McCain or Barack Obama morally takes power – and three and a half months until Inauguration Day, when one of them actually moves into the Oval Office. On the campaign trail, they can make uplifting speeches and put forward ingenious proposals. But speeches and policy papers will not make banks lend again.
However, yesterday already looks like Black Monday for Mr McCain. He returned to Washington last week as the self-styled statesman who would knock heads together for the country. But he, like Mr Bush, could not bring his Republicans into line. The tumultuous events of yesterday have only strengthened the feeling that America's worst financial crisis since the 1930s has doomed his bid for the presidency – just as the crash of 1929 doomed Herbert Hoover.
Rupert Cornwell: Stunning defeat of bill exposes failures of the US political system
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
...Then not only did a majority of Republicans disown their own president. After they sent the bailout compromise down in flames, those same Republicans then blamed the Democrats for their own disloyalty, accusing Speaker Nancy Pelosi of being too harsh in her criticism of their president. This despite the fact her Democrats, instinctively far less inclined to come to Wall Street's aid, had in fact done so.
Maybe Ms Pelosi should have been more restrained in her language. Maybe the head counters on both sides can be blamed for misjudging the balance of forces. More than a dozen Republicans were assumed to be in favour when they were not.
But in a deeper sense this is a crisis of the political system. The stately and endless process of electing a new president has produced a power vacuum at the worst possible moment.
Mr Bush's power, it has been conclusively demonstrated, is exhausted. Yet more than five weeks remain until election day – when either John McCain or Barack Obama morally takes power – and three and a half months until Inauguration Day, when one of them actually moves into the Oval Office. On the campaign trail, they can make uplifting speeches and put forward ingenious proposals. But speeches and policy papers will not make banks lend again.
However, yesterday already looks like Black Monday for Mr McCain. He returned to Washington last week as the self-styled statesman who would knock heads together for the country. But he, like Mr Bush, could not bring his Republicans into line. The tumultuous events of yesterday have only strengthened the feeling that America's worst financial crisis since the 1930s has doomed his bid for the presidency – just as the crash of 1929 doomed Herbert Hoover.
I disagree with the whole cloth credit crunch line though. Think about it. If credit is cut off by the banks, they cut off their most consistent revenue stream...that doesn't make sense.
Why cut off your nose to spite your face?