All the World's a Game
| Thu Sep. 25, 2008 7:00 PM PDT
ALL THE WORLD'S A GAME....Well, it appears that John McCain has succeeded in his plan to torpedo the bailout negotiations for a while so that he can swoop in and pretend to be their savior tomorrow. On CNN, Stephen Hayes says he'll get away with it because most people don't pay much attention to politics. "All they'll see is that that McCain suspended his campaign, flew to Washington, banged a few heads, and then we got an agreement. And that's a win for him." Sadly, he might be right.
There really seems to be no end to McCain's preening self-regard and stunt-of-the-week campaigning strategy these days, nor any end to his lack of regard for caring about what's actually best for the country. If this stuff were a game with no real-world consequences, I'd admire his gamesmanship. Since it's not, I'm just disgusted.
But if it's bread and circuses we're going to get, I might as well get the real thing: USC vs. Oregon State in Corvallis tonight. So that's where I'll be for the rest of the evening: watching a game that's supposed to be a game. I'll be back in a few hours.
UPDATE: Well, that was a bummer. Sort of like the rest of the week.
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Comments
Submitted by Jassalasca Jape (not verified) on Fri Sep. 26, 2008 3:08 AM PDT.
Brooks,
He is not a sophisticated conceptual thinker, but he is a good judge of character. He is not an organized administrator, but he has become a practiced legislative craftsman. He is, above all ? and this is completely impossible to convey in the midst of a campaign ? a serious man prone to serious things.Dear David: He is also 72 years old.
Submitted by Jassalasca Jape (not verified) on Fri Sep. 26, 2008 3:08 AM PDT.
Brooks,
He is not a sophisticated conceptual thinker, but he is a good judge of character. He is not an organized administrator, but he has become a practiced legislative craftsman. He is, above all ? and this is completely impossible to convey in the midst of a campaign ? a serious man prone to serious things.Dear David: He is also 72 years old.
I dunno. That is indeed a likely scenario, but it is also likely that the public will see this long-anticipated WaMu seizure by the FDIC for the crass political stunt that is was and grow even stronger on their opposition.
WaMu was Paulson's last bullet, if his aim was off the votes won't be there tomorrow.
Why so cynical? McCain has poisoned the Republicans against accepting anything that looks like Paulson, and no Democrat is going to support anything that bears even a whiff of McCain's cologne.
McCain has the power to bogart, but otherwise he's pretty useless as a leader.
Pollster Zogby is raising the possibility of a McCain landslide:
"The presidential election might be a tight race now, but one of the country's top pollsters thinks the race will end in an electoral landslide.
John Zogby, president of Zogby International, told a group of businesspeople today that it's up to Democratic Sen. Barack Obama to convince voters to go with him. If he's not successful, the country will likely vote for "a comfortable old shoe", that being Republican Sen. McCain."
McCain ain't getting away with anything. Just watched the Letterman clip on YouTube - No. 1 with over a million views in 24 hours. The shot of him getting makeup applied when he is supposedly racing to save the country is a killer. People are LAUGHING at him.
Submitted by Mac (not verified) on Thu Sep. 25, 2008 8:33 PM PDT.
Apparently USC is following McCain's lead and has decided not to show up.
Well, your average American voter might be ignorant, but they are not completely stupid. In all probability, there will be no deal completed by 9PM Eastern tomorrow. John McCain can't not show for the debate, because everyone would say WTF? So he'll say he'll show, and everyone will say, WTF was that about suspending your campaign? People do have a BS detector.
McCain can easily not show up if there is no deal, and he will renew his prior demand for more debates. I don't know how it will be viewed, but he has a hand to play and I think Obama will agree to a revised schedule of debates, because otherwise he flees Washington before the work is done to get on television for a campaign debate. Obama is a cautious man who will not take that chance.
Read this:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13918.html
Basically, Dodd and Frank worked with Paulson all week trying to qualify and modify the Paulson-Bernanke proposal.
This morning they were pretty close to a deal.
But then, per McCain's request, Bush invited McCain and Obama to the WH for a meeting.
It turned out McCain was working with House Republicans on a totally different plan, which was evidently to be the Knight-in-Shining-Armor, McCain Saves-the-Day plan.
Except it's not all what Paulson wanted, and not at all what the actual Congressional leaders had been preparing for.
So in the meeting, Obama exposes McCain, this private initiative of his, for all to see, before it was even ready.
This brilliant move guarantees several beautiful results:
The McCain/House GOP plan is DOA. No Democrat in their right mind will support it, and it in no way fits what the adult leadership (Paulson, Dodd, Frank, Reid, Pelosi) had in mind.
The odds of McCain playing White Knight are infinitesimal now; his stunt has messed up everything and consumed any good will other parties may have had towards him.
McCain's bluff on the debate has been called: he said he won't show up if there's no deal. Well, there's no deal, and won't be tomorrow. Will he go back on his word? Or will he really blow off Mississippi while nothing happens in Washington?
If you had any doubts about Obama, or any hopes for McCain, this story should remove most of them.
"Just how the credit markets are "clogged" is never explained, nor is it explained how they can be "unclogged" by stuffing $700Bn in new capital into them." -- anonymous on another blog
The big problem is the ARMs which can't be valued properly.
They have to be fixed, so they can be valued properly.
There is a question of WHERE they should be when this occurs.
a) courtroom during a foreclosure
b) Home Owner's Lending Corp. (HOLC) (an RTC-like institution)
c) Treasury
d) in situ
I don't trust that a judge and the slow processes of a courtroom is going to really solve our problem.
A HOLC takes time to set up and can be exploited by whomever is in power. It also takes a lot longer to set up.
Same with Treasury. Who do they work for? Does anybody trust an agency Bush has domain over?
in situ means we fix them where they are and then let business get on about valuing them and going back to normal business.
I prefer the latter, though it requires some extraordinary footwork. It doesn't require the $700B 'bailout' where government buys them (at what price), holds them (how long), tries to resell them (if possible and at what price) to break even.
The courtroom is grandpa McCain taking his time and a lot of people will get hurt.
The bailout is the 700B pound gorilla in the room and a lot of people are gonna get hurt.
Any big money plan is gonna hurt the taxpayers now and benefit somebody's administration years down the road if they can sell those mortgages at a profit.
in situ...look it up
For more, read ...
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/09/banking-expert-bailout-not-necess...
I hope there's no deal tomorrow both because I don't think there needs to be one (the whole bailout thing is bogus, in my view) and because I don't want to hear McCain crowing about his "leadership" skills. So I'm rooting for at least a 24 hour stall. Given the supposedly significant differences between the plans, if the recalcitrant House Republicans do fall into line tomorrow, clearly it's yet another McCain scripted dramatic performance. One wonders, then, whether the MSM will report it as such or be just gaga over it ...
Anything that prevents the passage of this abomination should be praised by all. Left, Right and Center.
I only wish that McCain had the brains to lead the opposition to this, but he and Obama are both in the tank.
So once again, it comes down to the conservative GOPers in the House to save the nation from the plans of the Washington "Elites".
Submitted by Xanthippas (not verified) on Thu Sep. 25, 2008 9:51 PM PDT.
Are you sure nobody's really paying attention to this? Because a lot of people know he suspended his campaign to go to D.C. and now suddenly we're reading about the bailout collapsing on the front pages of the Washington Post, the NY Times and every other major paper in America. If he was hoping to keep that manuever under wraps, I think he failed.
The thing is, no mega bill can pass now. Maybe if they agreed to a deal last weekend, they could have forced it through while there was still some of that initial shock and awe. But now everyone is fragmenting, and you'll never craft anything superlarge that a majority in both chambers will support. At best we'll have some $50 billion partial bailout with restrictions.
The Hail Mary pass is just not going to work. At best there will be a dump-off pass to the fat, slow fullback, who will end up getting tackled behind the line.
I can't remember exactly what he said, but earlier today, on "Hardball," Chris Matthews was pressing the Republican guest pretty hard on these stunts. He called him out fairly strong on this bullshit. This might come back to bite me in the ass, but if Matthews is doing it, perhaps others are doing it. And if McCain's not going to get adulatory press coverage from this, this seems to shoot a hole in Hayes' theory.
Its looks to me like we are on the cusp of something, both politically, and economically. If Wall street really thinks the rescue is off, the market could have a huge crash tommorrow, that might serve to concentrate minds. Then there is the fact that most of the population is very suspicious of the bailout, so it could play either for, or against the Republicans scorched earth campaign. I say scorched earth, because if the financial system is as fragile as Paulson claims, chaos could be in our immediate future. So many unknowns. So much emotional energy. It is hard to predict how this is gonna end up. But I think more likely then not, we will end up with a political blowout -and some severe economic fallout. Which side wins the political blowout, I don't want to guess at this time.
The President and Treasury are playing politics with this 'Crisis of all Crisis and not a minute to wait' BS; McCain's attempt to insert himself at the last minute is pure politics.
This does not get done without democratic support, to hell w/ the House GOP.
Make a power play. McCain out or NO DEAL! Hit cable news and rip him before he has a chance to spin.
Enough! This garbage has to stop.
It's amazing how McCain just stabbed Bush in the back. A modified version of Bush's plan was in the works and ready to be signed, and then McCain requests a meeting including Obama, all part of secret aim to deep-6 the plan.
For the first time in my life I have sympathy for Bush!
And this conservative alternative sounds like nothing of substance to me. I will be shocked if the markets don't tank tomorrow.
Will anyone want to work with McCain in the future? I really don't see how McCain turns this into a win. His behavior was downright creepy.
"but he has a hand to play and I think Obama will agree to a revised schedule of debates,"
You don't know much about the alpha-male pissing contests. This whole trainwreck has lost any semblance of a legitimate campaign and now is one big King of the Hill game.
If Obama accedes to any of McInsane's wild-eyed demands without getting any appropriate concessions of his own, he's acknowledged he's powerless and that MhHero is the alpha dog of the pack. He'll completely lose face and the Repugs will be high-fiving all the way to the Inauguration.
It's all a big game, but them's the rules as they stand right now.
McCain is screwed....how does nobody else see this?
If he supports the bailout, the republicans will crucify him. He loses big time.
If he kills the bailout (and the democrats let it die, please god) then the stock market tanks and people blame mccain and the GOP. If there is one thing that catches people's attention, its a good old fashion stock market crash. It will be below 10,000 next week without a bailout.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
How am I wrong?
Submitted by Carl Nyberg (not verified) on Thu Sep. 25, 2008 10:48 PM PDT.
Can somebody interview McCain and ask what he's trying to accomplish?
Also, please quiz him about the so-called crisis. Does he even understand it?
Bonus: ask McCain what he's been trying to accomplish vis-a-vis the crisis. How does he reconcile his actions with his goals.
I heard Obama on the evening news, and he seemed to be hedging as to whether he'd actually be there for the debate if McCain wasn't. Something about needing to get this bailout finished, etc, etc.
And I said to my TV, "NO! DON'T GIVE IN TO MCCAIN'S NONSENSE!"
We'll see if he listened.
Submitted by tpx (not verified) on Thu Sep. 25, 2008 11:05 PM PDT.
The Plebes were treated to a Beavers' win.
The relations between Bush and McCain must be really weird.
Remember the GI Bill that McCain was against until the very last minute and finally voted yea. Then Bush gave McCain credit during the signing ceremony. Now Bush has a plan, but ol' Johnny shows up totally uncomitted and suddenly there is a republiscum rebellion. But it's also Bush's fault for inviting him in the first place. McCain doesn't serve on any of the appropriate committees, has no expertise in Banking [other than his old buddy Keating], and hasn't done anything in the Senate for the last five months. And Obama didn't belong there either. Why would Bush invite him for anything other than political reasons. I just hope that Bush finds a way to exact some revenge. Poor Karl must be very conflicted now.
And is there any team anywhere that more deserving an embarrassment than the Spoiled Children? No, not really
As I recall, McCain pulled this same crap back in 2000. He backed out of a long planned debate with W that was to be held in Los Angeles. The polls said he was losing and he took a walk and tried to change all the ground rules on the fly.
Sound familiar?
So I have insomnia and decide to check out the Times and what do I read?
The day began with an agreement that Washington hoped would end the financial crisis that has gripped the nation. It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support.
WTF? Paulson on his knees?
And Brooks writes a puff piece on what a great man McCain is.
This is appalling.
Submitted by Craig (not verified) on Fri Sep. 26, 2008 1:54 AM PDT.
Rpbert Earle wrote: "is that one of those "flip-flop" things?"
Actually it's like a mackerel flopping out of water.
In McCain's mind, of course, he thinks he's General MacArthur. Or Augustus. That's the problem. His ego is a bit out of control.
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