The Paulson Sting

My fellow Americans, the "New Tone" chickens have finally, fully, devastatingly come home to roost.  And their name is Henry Paulson.

You remember the "New Tone," right?  It's what President George W. Bush wanted to bring to Washington, D.C. after years of "partisan bickering" between congressional Republicans and the Clinton administration.  He wanted things in the nation's capital to work the way he made them work in Texas state government: friendly, cordial, civil - one might even say "post-partisan".  In Austin, Dubya succeeded, because the Democrats he worked with there weren't the same kind of Democrats he was inheriting in Washington.  In Texas, most Dems are "blue dog" centrists, not very far philosophically or ideologically from Bush himself.  In Washington, most Dems are vicious, corrupt, Marxist scumbags.  And they had the long knives out for him from day one after the failure of Al Gore's Florida Insurrection.

But the President persevered anyway.  It's cost him again and again over the past eight years.  It's a wonder - neigh MIRACLE - that it didn't cost him a second term.  It's the reason that his approval ratings have been subterranean almost ever since he was re-elected, arguably a factor in the GOP losing Congress in 2006, and why John Sith McCain has such a steep hill to climb to somehow succeed him in five and a half weeks.

But never has it cost his party and his possible successor more than it has with the Paulson Sting.

Henry Paulson is George W. Bush's third Secretary of the Treasury.  Bush has never had a free-market conservative SecTres.  I have no idea why.  For a President that ran on supply-side tax-cutting, one would have thought he'd have dialed up Steve Forbes or Larry Kudlow even before he got on the blower to Colin Powell to ask him to run Foggy Bottom.  Instead he has invariably tapped either non-ideological or ideologically hostile types like the ever-loyal Paul O'Neill, the non-descript John Snow, and the now-treacherous Hank Paulson.

Paulson's selection two years ago was particularly pregnant given current circumstances.  As the ex-chairman of Goldman Sachs, he's not exactly a neutral, disinterested observer in the "Wall Street Meltdown," and as a Democrat, his loyalties to President Bush would, to any other Republican but he, have to be considered questionable at best.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Paulson has horns, a pitchfork, hooves, and a pointed tail.  But in light of what took place yesterday, he sure looks like a Donk mole in the heart of the "enemy" camp.

Let's reestablish the week's baseline, shall we?

1) TUESDAY: Paulson calls South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham - one of Darth Queeg's RINO Sith apprentices - and begs him to get McCain involved in the b[uy]out negotiations.  More specifically, to talk House Republicans into getting involved in the b[uy]out negotiations (even though the Dems had pointedly excluded them to that point) because without them, according to Paulson, no "bipartisan" deal will be possible (flag this in your thoughts for immediate future reference).

2) WEDNESDAY: Graham relays Paulson's message.  McCain, incapable of resisting a "call to duty" and any opportunity to "put country above party" - EVEN IN THE MIDDLE OF A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN - answers the call, and just as predictably calls Barack Obama and invites The One to join him in a show of bipartisan unity in the midst of a national "crisis".  Barry blows him off, and Maverick suspends his campaign (including pulling down all his ads) anyway and jets back to D.C.

Later in the day, at McCain's urging, President Bush invites both him AND Senator Hussein, along with the party leaders and Banking Committee Chairs and ranking members of both houses, to a "bipartisan crisis summit" at the White House to hammer out a "bipartisan deal" that will "save the country".  Having been directly summoned by the President of the United States, B.O. decides that invitation is too big and too public to snub.

3) THURSDAY: I'm listening to Sean Hannity on the way back from lunch.  He says that the big powwow at the White House has broken up.  McCain and Obama were supposed to come out and jointly speak to the press hordes on the front lawn, but Hannity reports that McCain exited via the West Wing, ducked into his transportation conveyance, and sped away without a word.  I figured Obama would come out and brag about having "saved the day" himself, and wondered why McCain would let him do that, but evidently Barry didn't have much to say, either.

This morning we found out why:

When Senator Barack Obama was given the floor to speak during White House negotiations, according to White House aides, he did so raising concerns about a House Republican alternative to the Paulson/Bernanke $700 billion bailout. But those concerns weren't necessarily his, as he was not aware of the GOP plan before reviewing notes provided him by Paulson loyalists in Treasury prior to entering the meeting.

According to an Obama campaign source, the notes were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him, who had been emailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. "It was made clear that the memo was from ‘friends' and was reliable," says the campaign source.

The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails.

"Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the Administration for which they serve," says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting, but who instead is part of the team hammering out the House GOP alternative. "We keep hearing about how Secretary Paulson is working with Democrats on this or that, yet he never seems to consider working with the party that essentially hired him. Perhaps he's auditioning for a Democratic administration job. Our proposal didn't just spring forth fully formed; we've been working on this for several days, and Treasury staff has known about it." [emphases added]

Here's Limbaugh's version, with some interesting additional details:

The President, in order to let everybody be heard, deferred to various Democrats, and every one of the Democrats - Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank - declined to speak and deferred to Obama.  So Obama became the official Democrat spokesman in the meeting.  This was to hype Obama's leadership and presidential aura and so forth.  What happened next, the first thing out of Obama's mouth - Paulson is in the meeting - is he starts ripping the House Republican proposal and asks Paulson what he thinks of it.

And - note this well - Paulson ripped it too.  Resuming quote...:

This led Boehner and the other Republicans in there to think they have been sandbagged.  We found out this morning that Obama had no clue - because he was in transit doing other things, he had no clue - what the House Republican position was....It ended up with Obama essentially chairing the meeting, with the meeting falling apart.  The President was described as "beleaguered," trying to regain control of the meeting.  McCain [hardly said] anything.  Everybody was yelling and screaming in there.  McCain did not.  He said, "We've gotta put these differences aside, work together," you know, typical McCain. [emphases added]

How pathetic is that?  If you had any doubts about just how lame a duck George W. Bush has become, this ought to lay it to nauseating rest.  Once again, Dubya "deferred" to these creatures; once again he tried to "reach out" to them to "put partisan differences aside" to "work together" to "do what's best for the country."  And once again they pissed in his face and kicked him in the nuts.  The "New Tone" produces its latest harvest of bitter, foolish fruit.

No, wait, I take that back; the Dems acted like Bush wasn't even there.  As far as they were concerned, this was Obama's meeting.  Consequently, it was McCain they were humiliating.

Here, though, is where I diverge from the Maha Rushie's take:

So this whole meeting yesterday essentially was established to show off Obama's leadership skills and negotiating skills, and he blew it!  People who disagree with him, he has no idea how to negotiate with.  Even Obama ended up last night on TV. I think the Democrats were so frightened that the truth would come out about what happened in this meeting.

Departure #1: The Democrats own majorities in both Houses of Congress.  On the House side, the minority is essentially powerless to stop the majority, and the majority can do anything it wants.  Consequently, Speakerette Pelosi could simply bring the House GOP counter-proposal to a vote, crush it, then ram through the Donk/Paulson nationalization bill on a party line vote and take all the credit for having "saved the country" from another "Great Depression".  What need is there to get House 'Pubbies to "negotiate"?

Three letters: C...Y...A.  Polls are showing the public substantially if not overwhelmingly against a Donk/Paulson-style b[uy]out, which also helps explain why Lucifer wants to tack on an extra $50 billion of worthless deficit spending (i.e. to make sure there's something in it for "Main Street" as well as "Wall Street").  As per usual, House Pachyderms are responding to the will of the people, heeding the voice of "Main Street," and Donks are trying to scheme there way around it.  The most direct route to doing so is to [DRUMROLL] "sandbag" House GOPers into caving in order to provide "bipartisan" cover for a Wall Street b[uy]out Main Street doesn't want, after which any credit will be glommed by the Dems and any blame will fall on Republicans.

Departure #2: I don't think Obama "blew" anything.  I think Pelosi and Reid and Dodd and Frank knew he was clueless about the House GOP proposal and used that cluelessness AND their nominee to DELIBERATELY SABOTAGE A DEAL and then MAKE SURE McCAIN WAS BLAMED FOR IT.

Scroll down the Limbaugh link.  After echoing Paulson earlier in the week that McCain's presence was absolutely crucial to getting a deal done, there were Dirty Harry and close Paulson pal Chucky Schumer and other Donks this morning claiming that they already HAD a deal done (which was BS) and McCain blew it up by not ordering House 'Pubbies to surrender (or failing to get them to comply).  Indeed, Schumer actually "respectfully" instructed President Bush to tell McCain to "get out of town."  Which, of course, Sailor had little choice but to do.

What have I been saying all week about McCain's "bailing out for the b[uy]out?  That he was setting himself up to fail because the Democrats have exactly ZERO reasons to negotiate and EVERY reason to hold out and, if it happens, let the economy collapse.

Let's review:

1) In any negotiation, the side that can afford to wait longer ALWAYS has the upper hand.

2) The Democrats are going to gain seats in Congress in November no matter how this b[uy]out business turns out, and in the event of a total economic meltdown they'll benefit from that even more.  And in the meantime, the longer they hold out, the greater their chance of getting everything they want in a deal and more.

Consequently the Democrats have had the upper hand in the whole Wall Street Meltdown from day one (conceded to them by John McCain's RINO fecklessness), arguably promulgated the policies that created it with such an eventual outcome in mind, and used their man in the Bush Cabinet, Henry Paulson, to lure John McCain into a trap that would destroy both his credibility and his candidacy on the issue that will dominate the rest of the campaign, and thus guarantee the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the next president of the United States.

The Democrats have achieved what may be the ultimate coup: they will be the ones responsible for destroying the economy, and their reward will be total, unchecked power over it.  And they have exploited John McCain's own maverick gimmick to pull it off.

A fitting end for a decade of perfidy against his own.  A bitter tragedy that the rest of us have to accompany him to this political perdition.