The Anchoress
UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi poisoned her own meal ticket.
I said it on September 26, and I think I said it first: I am sure that things are in deeply serious and yes, something needs to be done, but there is also something illusory at work here. I wrote:
It seems to me that there is an illusion being worked in the middle of all this frenzy; if during this crisis, the Democrats can still worry about laying themselves out for ACORN, and Harry Reid can take the time to try to sneak a ban on oil shale mining into new legislation, then that tells me something. It tells me there is time and room, here, and that more is driving this than we can see. It makes me wonder if we should not hit the brakes before we go over a cliff, because we couldn’t clearly see the bend in the road.
A short time later, I noted some skepticism from The Volokh Conspiracy. Then I noticed Glenn Reynolds observe:
You know, it would be easier for me to believe this was a crisis, if the people in charge were acting like it was a crisis, instead of just an opportunity for graft. Then again, to some of these people, everything is just an opportunity for graft.
Just now, out driving, I heard Rush Limbaugh open his show with a musing that – while we are clearly in a serious situation – the people running in hysterics about the “crisis” are still not acting like there is a “crisis” – that Mrs. Pelosi and her crew could have done what they wanted without looking to the right for “cover,” and a true “crisis” would have demanded that she do exactly that. Nearly ten days into the frenzy – breathlessly reported by the same cheerleader press who cried through Katrina (but not Ike) and never corrected their reports of murders in the Superdome – we still have no legislation.
Harry Reid was able to say, “We need, now, the Republicans to start producing some votes for us. We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do.” then turn around and play presidential politics with it.
It’s all presidential politics. I’m convinced of it. I became most convinced of it when Barack Obama went on the Sunday shows yesterday and took full credit for the “bailout” plan he now says he is giving only “cautious support.”
Hello? If it’s your baby, Sen. Obama, or the brilliant brainchild of your own party, why are you being so “cautious” with your support? Hello? If all of this about more than simply beating up your candidate with an inconsistent stick, why aren’t you behind this thing? Why – during this “terrible crisis” – are you comfortable playing politics and circling around in a holding pattern (working it for all the political advantage you can squeeze) and attempting to develop a narrative on what you are calling “McCain’s Katrina-like response”? Did you miss the part, Sen. Obama, where Harry Ried begged McCain to come back, and he suspended his campaign? Is there time for building narratives and circling around – dragging things out as close to the election as possible – if we are in a time of unprecedented “crisis”?
Hello? The GOP leadership says were it not for McCain the Democrats would have steamrollered them. So, why did the Dems insist on GOP support at all, except for a need to blame, blame and blame?
I’m disgusted.
Everyone says we need the bailout. Fine, yes, we must do something. But I’m convinced the frenzy we’ve been fed for the last ten days is theater; I’m not buying into it anymore. This is precisely the “presidential politics” the execrable Harry Reid was so egregiously, disgustingly quick to accuse of John McCain.
Hmmmmm….Dr. Mark Perry, Prof. of Economics & Finance at U. Michigan takes a look, makes a few graphs and wonders where is the credit crisis?
UPDATE: Watch this video of Rep. Paul Ryan, (R) Wisconsin.
Related: Jimmie Bise wonders if McCain is putting the country before his campaign?
Ace: Did Paulson 700 Billion out of his ass?. No, out of yours and mine, actually.
Dennis Miller on the egregious Reid
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