No Deal

I've been saying for the past week that Democrats do not WANT a Wall Street bailout, they do not WANT to stabilize the financial system they themselves destabilized, but rather very much want a complete economic collapse they can blame on Republicans and use to panic voters into plebesciting them to a virtual, literal coup de tat.  Yesterday's bailout compromise thus came as a mild surprise to me, and led me to the conclusion that Crazy Nancy and Dirty Harry had decided to not overplay an already strong political hand and rake in the already substantial statist pot sitting on the "bipartisan" negotiating table.

When am I going to learn to trust my gut instincts?  Here was the Nora Desmond reject on the House floor today right before the bailout compromise went down to defeat:

This was a rhetorical pair of extended middle fingers at the minority party of her chamber whose input she never wanted and got stuck with thanks to the vainglorious intervention of John McCain last week.  It may also have been a bit of panic at the possibility that her own party's true culpability for the Wall Street Meltdown might get out before Election Day.  But more than anything else I think this was a bellicose attempt to piss enough Pachyderms off to ensure the bailout's defeat and vomit responsibility in GOP faces.  The markets dutifully plunge (777 points today), the electorate with which this bill is profoundly unpopular panics, flip-flops in desperation, Crazy Nancy restores all the hard-left crap that got stripped out over the weekend, rams it through on a party-line vote, and the mere massacre Republicans were facing in November becomes full-fledged genocide. 

Allahpundit's predictably convinced it's already a fait accompli.  But could it be that Granny Rictus McBotox's poisonous rant was precisely the political hand-overplaying that she and her neoBolshevik comrades smilingly avoided just a day ago?

Think of the psychology that has emerged throughout this process: Last week Dems were in the process of railroading a Marxist "rescue" plan through the legislative allimentary tract under cloak without any non-risible GOP input or even knowledge when John McCain parachuted in from the campaign trail and brought John Boehner and the rest of his unwanted guests to the bargaining table.  Unable to continue the cram-down without losing PR face, the Donk leadership was forced to go through the motions of bipartisanship and work towards a genuine compromise.  It didn't give them all the extraneous goodies they wanted for their extremist base constituents, but it did give them unprecedented control over the financial sector and a gargantuan pile of our money to play with.  With the gains they stand to make in November and Barack Obama now with the inside track to the White House, they could easily add back those concessions next year.

Instead, after having given the public perception of finally working with the Republicans in a responsible fashion to get something done for the good of the country, the Speaker - not a backbencher flunky, or even one of her top lieutenants, but Nancy Pelosi herself - goes to the House floor in maximally public fashion right before the vote on the bailout and blasts the bill and the House Republicans whose votes she and every other Dem have insisted for the past week were critical to getting a bailout bill done.

NANCY PELOSI torpedoed this bailout compromise.  Not John Boehner, not John McCain, not George W. Bush, but THE DEMOCRAT SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.  Not in the dead of night, BUT IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.

But, comes the counter-argument, shouldn't House 'Pubbies have been smarter than to fall into her trap and vote against the bill just because she as much as told them to go bleep themselves?  To which Jim Geraghty has a very salient answer:

Sure, two-thirds of House Republicans voted against it. But they were always against it, complaining about it from the beginning.  You heard Boehner, he described the bill as a crap sandwich; nobody should have expected a lot of Republican votes for this. But the House GOP Leadership did get on board, and encouraged their rank-and-file to do the same.

Pelosi said she needed political cover. A third of House Republicans ought to be enough cover.

How the hell does Pelosi's bill not carry 40% of her caucus?

Because she went to the floor of the House and as much as told the portion of her caucus whose collective ass would not be in a sling if they did vote for it to join her in flipping the GOP the bird - and, in their minds, wave them bye-bye as they go to their November butchering.  Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if, far from having no control over her Members, she made sure she whipped up enough "nay" votes over and above her vulnerable "blue dogs" to counter however many votes Boehner came up with in favor of the bill to make sure it went down anyway.

In summation, Pelosi's speech didn't turn Republicans against this bailout compromise, it greenlighted Democrats to "tank" it.  They're not willing to settle for most of what they want and get the rest in a few months; they want it ALL, RIGHT NOW, and expect the voters to punish the GOP for it.

Is that really saleable to the public at large?  Double-H emphatically doesn't think so:

This is the bottom line: Democrats defeated this bill, and cooly walked out to denounce the House Republicans.  Just as the Dems demonstrated during the long debate over off-shore drilling, they do not care a whit about the impact of their Beltway doings provided they think it will bring them more seats and greater power and perhaps the presidency. 

The voters of this country would be insane to turn more power over to this bunch, much less to the irrelevant Obama, standing on the sidelines doing nothing to bring the party he allegedly leads to the responsibilities of governing.

Indeed.  Of course, I thought voters were insane to give Congress back to these worthless animals two years ago, but now here comes the most emphatic evidence of that insanity imaginable.  Could such lightning really strike twice in such close, consecutive proximity?

I think it's a question of how much, and how many, people panic this week.  Having gone this far towards deliberately igniting a Second Great Depression, I highly doubt Pelosi'll stop now and not complete the reckless lunge by ramming through the garishly Marxist bill her party was trying to sneak through a week ago.  If enough voters are paying attention to recognize that Crazy Nancy deliberately destroyed the compromise, then this flagrantly political ploy will backfire.  If too many voters are stampeded and only see the bailout bill that DOES pass, regardless of the details, as their economic salvation ONLY DAYS AFTER THEY STAUNCHLY OPPOSED IT, then we - conservatives, Republicans, AND Americans - are all screwed.

UPDATE: McCain's moment, or irrelevant rerun?

UPDATE II: I told you so, I told you so, I TOLD YOU SO....

UPDATE III: Rather than another appeal to "come together in the spirit of bipartisanship for the good of the country," blah, blah, blah, wouldn't this be the time for John McCain to have his own "Joseph Welch" moment?  To go before the American people and say:

"Speaker Pelosi, you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, madame?  You and Senator Obama and Senator Reid and the rest of your party's leadership?  At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

The Democrats are trying to destroy the economy in order to permanently take it over and sticking Republicans with the blame.  The time for bipartisanship, for "business as usual," is over.  Never has there been a moment in our nation's history where country and party can be elevated at one and the same time.  And never has there been a man in the right place at the right time and better suited to the task than John McCain.

If Maverick takes this stand, he'll turn this entire campaign around.

Ball's in your court, Senator.  Time's a wasting.

UPDATE IV: I waived buh-bye to four grand today.  Can I send Crazy Nancy the bill?

UPDATE V: No, I'm not "Inspector Asshole," but Pelosi is definitely the "sonofabich [with] a Davey Crockett nuclear howitzer."  Oh, for somebody to make that thing misfire right into that crazoid bitch's stay-puffed face like Elmer Fudd's hunting rifle.

UPDATE VI: You know what Nancy Pelosi is?  An extortionist.  She's holding the entire American economy hostage to force the Republicans to commit political suicide and the American people to give up their liberty, constitutional sovereignty, and economic security by giving Democrats total power.  Is John McCain able or willing to publicly say so?