Bob Herbert speculates on what happens when the inmates take over the asylum:
George H.W. Bush warned us about “voodoo economics” in 1980, but the ideologues clamped a gag on him and put him on the Gipper’s ticket. For much of the time since then, the madmen of the right have carried the day. They were freed of their remaining few restraints with the ascendance of George W. Bush in 2000.
These were the reckless clowns who led us into the foolish multitrillion-dollar debacle in Iraq and who crafted tax policies that enormously benefited millionaires and billionaires while at the same time ran up staggering amounts of government debt. This is the crowd that contributed mightily to the greatest disparities in wealth in the U.S. since the gilded age.
This was the crowd that cut the cords of corporate and financial regulations and in myriad other ways gleefully hacked away at the best interests of the United States.
Now we’re looking into the abyss.
When President Bush went on television last week to drum up support for the bailout package, he looked almost dazed, like someone who’d just climbed out of an auto wreck.
“Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.
He should have said that he, along with his irresponsible Republican colleagues and their running buddies in the corporate and financial sectors, put the entire economy in danger. John McCain and his economic main man, Phil (“this is a mental recession”) Gramm, were right there running with them.
And over at electoral-vote.com, they're commenting on Maverick Johny's unique take on leadership:
John McCain blamed the failure of the House bill on the Democrats, even though 60% of the Democrats voted for the bill and only 33% of the Republican did so. The old Maverick McCain would have said: "Government interference in the markets is a bad thing, something Republicans understand and Democrats don't, so we defeated this evil bill." But Candidate McCain knew that would not sell so well, so he didn't say it. McCain clearly realizes that his suspending his campaign and zipping off to Washington to provide leadership doesn't look so great now that the bill went down to defeat not because the Democrats opposed it, but because 2/3 of the House Republicans opposed it. Who is the real leader now that Nancy Pelosi got of majority of her people behind the bill but McCain was unable to rally more than 1/3 of his troops and all eight members of the Arizona congressional delegation--four Republicans and four Democrats--voted against it?
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