Things That You Might Need To Know

[billroper]

According to CBS newsman Bob Schieffer, McCain is going to Washington DC to try to get Republicans on board to a solution for the subprime mortgage debacle at the request of the Secretary of the Treasury.

As we dig into the background a bit further, we find that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told McCain yesterday -- after McCain said that he and Obama should get back to Washington and help sort this out -- that McCain should stay away.

Of course, the day before that Reid said that McCain needed to take a position on the bailout and that McCain was supporting it.

To which McCain responded, "I did not say that."

Now, maybe I'm a bit prejudiced about this and maybe I'm a bit cynical about this, but it looks to me like the Democratic objective here was to hang this bailout on McCain without Obama having to take a position either pro or con, thus allowing Obama to campaign against it as "McCain's bailout plan" after the dust settles. McCain, being somewhat smarter than a load of rocks, isn't falling for that particular trick. If this is supposed to be a bi-partisan bailout plan -- and the Democrats have said that they won't pass it without some sufficient number of Republican votes -- then either both candidates are going to have to publicly sign on to it or neither one has to sign on to it.

So, yes, McCain is doing a bit of posturing, but it's absolutely necessary posturing, because Obama has to either be on the same hook that the Democratic Congressional leadership wants to put McCain on or explain to the folks negotiating the bailout plan what his better idea is for solving the problem.

And trust me. If Obama's got a better idea, Congress will be all over it.

Comments

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Plus I'll just note that McCain "stopping everything" to fly to Washington to work with his party or have a photo op with Bush, whichever interpretation one might favor...

Coincides with the negotiations, which had been reported as very close to agreement, blowing up, burning down, and sinking into the swamp, with much accompanying shouting, fingerpointing and angst.

And the blowup was because a large group of Republicans backed out of the deal.

Now, I'm going to try and take the high road here, but even so, I'd have to say that it looks like McCain's trip to Washington didn't actually help all that much in reaching agreement.

In the meantime, the University of Mississippi had spent 5 million dollars preparing for the debate that McCain was threatening to blow off. When 700 billion is flying around the news, maybe that doesn't seem like much, but my experience is that Universities have tight budgets, struggle to pay their own people, and for them 5 million is a serious chunk of cash.

But it's okay, because now he says that agreement is close enough that he'll debate after all. Which is great--but, um, is the bill closer to agreement now than it was before the spectacular, um, negotiation failure at the meeting yesterday?

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

I doubt that the bill is going anywhere. The House Republicans have made it night-on impossible to come to any sort of agreement, and they're totally uninterested in a deal.