Selling the Bailout
| Wed Oct. 1, 2008 9:26 AM PDT
SELLING THE BAILOUT....One of the ongoing mysteries of the bailout plan is why the Bush administration did such a lousy job of selling it. As Ezra Klein points out, if this were the first term crew, the plan would have been rolled out with some kind of snazzy, disingenuous name (how about the Financial Reconstruction and Emergency Employment Act, or FREE?) and accompanied by a blizzard of fact sheets that completely misrepresented what the Act would cost and what it would do. Opponents would have been demagogued, talk radio would have been harnessed, and Bush would have been giving speeches and press conferences daily. So what happened?
Well, who knows? But I'll take a few guesses:
This is no longer the White House of Karl Rove, Andy Card, and Dan Bartlett, and it shows.
Bush's heart was never in this. He didn't want to sponsor a bailout and only signed on under extreme duress when Paulson and Bernanke convinced him we were facing a genuine emergency. (This is ironic, of course, since some of the opposition to the bill has compared the administration's "fearmongering" of the financial crisis to the runup of the Iraq war. This is 180 degrees backward. Bush has spent the last year desperately trying to ignore the financial crisis, not selling the country on a solution. If anything, distrust of Bush ought to convince you that maybe this bill is necessary after all.)
The main impetus behind the bailout bill was Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, who may be conservative but who aren't hacks. A typical Bushian razzle-dazzle sales campaign just isn't their style.
The events of the week of September 19th were so catastrophic that Paulson honestly didn't think there would be any serious opposition to the bill. He figured it was like the Pearl Harbor Resolution: just draft up something short and simple, hand it over to Congress, and it would be approved 434-1 the next day. He and Bernanke simply had no idea that it would get the reception it did.
On a political note, Democrats are now in charge of Congress, which means the bailout bill had to pass through the Democratic leadership. The Bushies just aren't used to that and didn't really know what to do. So they flailed.
Bush and his staff still have no clue about just how low their political capital has fallen. They simply didn't realize that even their own party would laugh in their faces even when faced with a genuine emergency. (On the other hand, I'll bet they know now. This has been a very rude wakeup call for them.)
One way or another, this has been a monumental cockup. For more, check out David Colker and Tom Hamburger's piece in the LA Times today. Nickel summary: they just totally screwed the pooch on this.
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Comments
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Wed Oct. 1, 2008 3:33 PM PDT.
"The Bush administration has been fortunate in having 'sensible liberal' bloggers to help sell their kleptocratic bailout bill with the very same content-free fear-mongering that was used to sell the Patriot Act and the authorization to invade Iraq."
Blah, blah, blah. Talk about "fear mongering"?these insinuations and outright claims of betrayals to the cause and accusations of useful idiotism is straight out of the McCarthyist playbook and that of any other ideologically politically correct oriented partisan appartchik denunciation strategy. It's ugly, small-minded, and smells like the same sort of blackmail tactics our opposition is so willing to use at the drop of a hat.
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Wed Oct. 1, 2008 3:33 PM PDT.
"The Bush administration has been fortunate in having 'sensible liberal' bloggers to help sell their kleptocratic bailout bill with the very same content-free fear-mongering that was used to sell the Patriot Act and the authorization to invade Iraq."
Blah, blah, blah. Talk about "fear mongering"?these insinuations and outright claims of betrayals to the cause and accusations of useful idiotism is straight out of the McCarthyist playbook and that of any other ideologically politically correct oriented partisan appartchik denunciation strategy. It's ugly, small-minded, and smells like the same sort of blackmail tactics our opposition is so willing to use at the drop of a hat.
I think peej is right. Bush's heart isn't in it. He's counting the days until he's done. Plus the fact that he can't default to his normal Modus operandi (demagogue opponents)since the opponents are large number of republicans -- it all leaves him hamstrung.
Just goes to show how shallow and superficial this administration's "leadership" really is/was.
How about the fact that the original plan was an extraordinarily bad plan, and that the current plan is little better.
No suspension of dividends paid to current shareholders, no haircut for existing creditors, no first call on cash for the US gov't, credit extended at relatively easy terms.
Why can't the US gov't get a deal that is remotely close to the deal Warren Buffet got with Goldman Sachs??
I know this may sound crazy, but your post made me wonder how different things might have been for the country and Bush if he'd run the country using his current team or their equivalent from the beginning. Whatever their shortcomings, Gates, Bernanke, Paulson, Petraeus, and even Rice have been marked improvements over their Administration counterparts of say 2003. While they are clearly conservative, they appear to be more pragmatic, interested in governing more than in ideological purity. Whatever you may want to say about them, they are part of the fact-based community. Much of this, of course, may be due to a Democratic Congress or perhaps they've finally just stopped running for office and decided to actually start running the country.
> Paulson honestly didn't
> think there would be any
> serious opposition to the
> bill. He figured it was
> like the Pearl Harbor
> Resolution: just draft up
> something short and
> simple, hand it over to
> Congress, and it would be
> approved 434-1 the next
> day.
He just assumed that "no oversight, no court review" provision would slip right by, eh?
In addition to haraldb's observation that the Paulson plan is (and remains) a stinking turd, how about the fact that nobody bothered to ask 300 million Americans to join the conversation through public hearings?
No expert testimony, no Wall Street CEO testimony, no public input, just put $700B in taxpayer money at risk in a Japanese-style bailout?
If this bailout is such an awesome one, then it's long past time for the Washington political class to stop calling Americans idiots and start having a real public debate. (And where is Paulson's Powerpoint? Anybody beyond about 8 calcified pols seen it yet?)
So what on Earth makes you think their implementation of this plan is going to be any better than their marketing of it? In the past, the ONLY thing the Bushies have been good at is marketing. Now they can't even do that.
This plan is a crock. Rep. Defazio's is far superior, and that ought to be the one supported by all Democrats. The Dems tried it Bush's way, again, and all it accomplished was a big fat nothing.
From the third paragraph of the LA Times story: "[I]nstead of starting out by organizing a broad-based coalition to build bipartisan support and mounting a grass-roots campaign to explain the crisis ..."
I think I've heard that somewhere before.
The Bush administration has been fortunate in having "sensible liberal" bloggers to help sell their kleptocratic bailout bill with the very same content-free fear-mongering that was used to sell the Patriot Act and the authorization to invade Iraq.
In particular, "sensible liberal" bloggers have been helpful to the Bush administration by assiduously avoiding any discussion or analysis or even any mention of the alternative proposals being put forward by progressive Congressional Democrats, thereby deliberately creating the false impression that there is "no choice" but to pass the Bush administration's proposal.
kidkostar wrote: "This plan is a crock. Rep. Defazio's is far superior, and that ought to be the one supported by all Democrats."
Sensible liberal bloggers like Kevin know that they must never even mention DeFazio's proposal -- it would undermine their claims that there is "no choice" but to pass the Bush administration's kleptocratic bailout bill.
Instead of mentioning -- let alone discussing and analyzing -- the progressive alternatives to Bush's bailout bill, sensible liberal bloggers like Kevin know that they must call progressive Democrats who oppose the Bush proposal "Lou Dobbs populist know-nothing yahoo villagers with pitchforks" and other puerile names.
That's how they are helping the Bush administration and the Congressional Republicans push through a bill larded with wacko right-wing provisions that have nothing to do with the "financial crisis" and everything to do with enriching the Republican Party's ultra-rich cronies and financial backers.
Submitted by Rick B (not verified) on Wed Oct. 1, 2008 11:46 AM PDT.
If anything, distrust of Bush ought to convince you that maybe this bill is necessary after all.
Crap.
If George Bush is standing on the same continent of a problem, he caused it and he is pushing hard to make it worse. Everything he thinks and does and everyone he knows all make America a worse place to live.
If Bush wanted the Paulson Proposal to succeed he should have gone to Brunei and held a press conference denouncing it as the result of a rogue Treasury Secretary. Or better yet, Bush might have simply disappeared into a bottle and drunkenly told the press he wasn't going to get involved.
It still looks like a case of end of term "Shock doctrine" to me. Bush has done everything he could to tie the next President's hands. (See Iraq Status of Forces Agreement.) What makes the current idiocy any different? This banking/credit crisis and it's timing are no accident.
So a lot of people are buying it? So what? A lot of people bought the WMD lies and bought into the stupidity of invading Iraq, too. A lot of people bought Bush's lies when he said he would rebuild New Orleans. A lot of people stupidly bought the Bush claims he wasn't involved during the short attempt to remove Hugo Chavez from Venezuela when he quickly recognized the four day government of the coup plotters. And Bush is Wall Street's man in the White House.
Trusting Bush, his minions, or Wall Street is utter stupidity bordering on insanity. When there appears to be a problem, they are at its root and any apparent attempt they support to "fix" the problem is a power grab.
What a shocker. The fifth time the shepherd boy screamed about a non-existent wolf, the other shepherds failed to rush to his side.
I guess Bush's mother didn't have enough time to read that cautionary story to her kids. Too bad for all of us.
SecularAnimist,
I couldn't agree with you more.
Strange debate this is. Kevin and the "reasonable" Democrats in congress are pushing the Bush line. Meanwhile, Bush's own party is opposing him. The other day on Political Animal it seemed like the only one backing up your points was Fat White Guy. This whole thing reads like a chapter from the Book of Revelation - be sure to check the color of the moon tonight.
The two wings of the Money party seem to favor imaginary wealth but the various wings of the unMonied party seem to want wealth they can see with their eyes and feel with their hands.
This bailout favors the sponsors of the Money party and ignores the others. There are, of course, many more unMonied voters than rich voters. See you in November.
Whatever their shortcomings, Gates, Bernanke, Paulson, Petraeus, and even Rice have been marked improvements over their Administration counterparts of say 2003.
Sorry, but that's just soft bigotry. Let's dust off some of Rice's greatest hits, shall we?
As early as January of 2003, Rice, as head of the NSA, took to the pages of the New York Times in absolute certainty that Saddam Hussein was in possession of nuclear, chemical, & biological weapons.
In September of 2003, as testimony to her certainty that Saddam had nukes, she famously said, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
And Rice, noted Sovietologist that she is, remained absolutely silent in her current role as Secretary of State while both Georgian & Russian forces massed at their border in the run-up to their conflagration over South Ossetia & Abkhazia.
She's utterly & irredeemably incompetent.
Submitted by Keith M Ellis (not verified) on Wed Oct. 1, 2008 3:33 PM PDT.
"The Bush administration has been fortunate in having 'sensible liberal' bloggers to help sell their kleptocratic bailout bill with the very same content-free fear-mongering that was used to sell the Patriot Act and the authorization to invade Iraq."
Blah, blah, blah. Talk about "fear mongering"these insinuations and outright claims of betrayals to the cause and accusations of useful idiotism is straight out of the McCarthyist playbook and that of any other ideologically politically correct oriented partisan appartchik denunciation strategy. It's ugly, small-minded, and smells like the same sort of blackmail tactics our opposition is so willing to use at the drop of a hat.
