Thinkin’bout Stuff

We keep hearing this is a major crises that, if not solve, will lead to the next Great Depression if our elected officials can not work together to find a way to lead us to safety.

So, it is with that hanging over their heads that our “leaders” have been talking about the need to work together in a bi-partisan manner to solve this mess. 

Unfortunately, and this seems to be more of a Dem problem than a Rep problem, some of our “leaders” think the way to solve this problem is to run to the microphones and point fingers.  I suppose that might be a logical approach if you believe failure is inevitable and you want to avoid any blame, but it sure as heck is no way to reach a goal.

What someone needs to remind these folks is that we are all watching how they behave and anything that does not advance us towards our goal is a distraction, and distractions in this case are politically motivated and self-serving. 

Cases in point (from AP & Reuters):

• Rep. Barney Frank said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at a White House meeting Thursday, not long after key congressional players of both parties declared they’d achieved the broad outlines of an agreement on a bill implementing the administration’s proposed $700 billion bailout plan.
• He (Frank) called the rival proposal being pushed by House conservative Republicans “an ambush plan.”
• “I didn’t know I was going to be the referee for an internal GOP ideological civil war,” Frank
• “This is the president’s own party,” Frank said at the time. “I don’t think a president has been repudiated so strongly by the congressional wing of his own party in a long time.”
• Asked Friday whether an agreement appeared likely by the end of the weekend, Frank said: “It depends on the House Republicans dropping this revolt against the president and cooperating in trying to amend the plan and at this point I can’t give you a yes or no because it’s up to the House Republicans and their war, I think, on behalf of Sen. McCain, with President Bush.”
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, asked if a way can be found to an accord any time soon, said that “it will happen because it has to happen. I would hope we could come to agreement within the next 24 hours so we could put the bill in writing and bring it to the floor. That’s really up to the House Republicans.”
• “We need to get the president to get the Republican House in order,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor. “Without Republican cooperation, we cannot pass this bill.”
• Schumer said Bush should also “respectfully tell Sen. McCain to get out of town. He is not helping, he is harming. Before Sen. McCain made his announcement, we were making progress.”
• U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd harshly criticized McCain for creating “political theater” to “rescue” his presidential campaign.

I’m sure I could find, with little effort, more helpful quotes from Democrats trying to advance this legislation.  I have found no acrimonious statements from Republican members of Congress pointing fingers at Democrats or Obama.

What’s fascinating is that, if there is a plan that the Democrats support and the President supports, and the Democrats have majorities in both the House and the Senate, and they really believe in their plan… then why not put it to a vote and pass it.  We are told there are enough votes in the Senate already, and the House should be no problem since Dems control it, so what’s the problem?

The problem is that Reid, Pelosi, Fran, Schumer, Dodd and the rest are not sure this will work and they don’t want the blame if it doesn’t.

Also, in the same article, AP commentary disguised as news: Even for a party whose president suffers dismal approval ratings, whose legislative wing lost control of Congress and whose presidential nominee trails in the polls, Thursday was a remarkably bad day for Republicans.

I suppose it wasn’t such a great day for a Democrat led Congress who have even a worse approval rating than the President and whose presidential nominee thinks this is such a major crises that he’s phoning it in.

Update: As I write, Reid is holding a press conference to blame the lack of a deal on McCain.  That’s helpful.  He is saying that Senate Democrats and Republicans and House Democrats agree with the princples outlined by Senator Obama… so it is Senator Obama who is solving this crises!  Right… nothing political going on here.

Finger pointing is not helping, but if this devolves into finger pointing, Schumer, Frank and Dodd better be careful, because their fingerprints are all over this mess.

And now, instead of working out differences behind closed doors.. Reid and Dodd are in front of the microphones and cameras playing the blame game… blaming everyone with an “R” next to his/her name … and they are pointing directly at John McCain as ruining everything, as if there really was some agreement before McCain arrived…. nice.  No politics going on here…  what a bunch of idiots.

UPDATE #2:  Reid is still speaking and just made sure to let everyone know that “we did not create this problem”… what a load of BS.  After this mess, there should be hearings to find out what really happened, but I’ll bet you the answer is in the attempt to inject socialistic ideals into a capitalistic system.  Requiring private companies to take on high risk investments for political reasons will be at the root of this crises, as will the cozy relationship between these companies and the Dem leadership which is being uncovered.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am and is filed under Economy, Election 2008, Media, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.