How Politics Trumped Governance

So, how did we get a war inside the Republican party that may leave the economy in shambles? Look to the end of last week, when McCain made his odd Washington cameo.

First, a bit of subtext: the legacy of the Bush years is how politics trumped governance. McCain, egging on these Republican anti-Bush/Paulson insurgents during his brief return, was doing the politics-first, win-at-all-cost, dance. He was, in essence, telling Bush it was payback time (after all McCain had done, holding his nose, in a support role for W since 2004). Specific, unspoken instructions to Bush in that big White House blow up: give way (and lose face) as the new Republican party -- which McCain now claims to lead -- alters his Treasury Secretary's $700 billion bailout. This will make McCain seem like the de facto president, filling a vaccum, giving him a huge election time boost -- maybe enough of a boost to win. Bush's response, screw you; I'm still in charge and, incidentally, I don't believe in reciprocity. Bush's position: Loyalty goes one way with me, it flows upward, and I'm still the President. I thought you got that, John.

This behind the scenes power putcsh is why most of the House Republicans are now opposing Bush. They're done with him, that's clear, and running from him like the Republicans did in Nixon's final days. For his part, Bush is trying to make sure no one else (and especially McCain) has a chance to step up into the void. With Bush, everything is personal -- it's how he makes sense of a complex world and tries to bend it to his will.

Historically speaking, the Bush/Cheney/Rove innovation of this period has been the view that politics and governance are not incompatible. In fact, their view is that politics fiercely played -- triumphing in daily news cycles and winning as a first principle -- is the guiding strategy of governance.

Now, McCain, waiting to claim victory of any brokered deal inside the Republican camp, is saying that the tide is with me. If I keep my cooI, I might ride it right to the White House. He's taking a leaf from a well-worn playbook that history may show as the cause of so much that has gone wrong. It may now spell political gridlock, incoherent policy, and disaster for the U.S. economy.

Comments

[MinasTirith]

What's scary is that the Republicans are trying to use this event to create a 'New Republican Order' out of the chaos.

They are lining up to avoid looking like Bush in elections across the country - their vote strongly influenced by how assured they were of maintaining their seat.

These people will use ANY tactic to effectively mug the American people and its basic ideologies, for their own gain. And at every turn, they rob from the poor, and give to the rich.

Anti-Robin-Hood: Men insane.

[montemalone]

What US economy?
All we do is sell paper?
This bailout is a bad idea.
We need to have a little discomfort in the real world for people to realize that this is what happens when you elect crimina.. I mean, free market, anti-government politicians.

If the institutions that stand to benefit from Bush'sBucketO'Money really have a sustainable operation, then let the market will out. Let the CDS holders claim their paydays.

Vendors of necessities, like food, will find a way to get their goods to the store. People won't starve.

I don't know how I'll buy any, though. I'm a Realtor. Wanna buy a house?

[VPMooseburger]

It's true, the shadow economy, built on paper, now dwarfs the real economy. The problem is, they're so intertwined that if the bleeding is not stopped you could go to your ATM in a couple of weeks to get cash and BLAMMO! No money.

I think these guys are legitimately freaked the hell out.

And, I think with proper regulation, the banks will recover - because a tightly regulated banking system gives banks a license to make a fair return, and they almost never fail. It's like being in the Casino biz. You're guaranteed to make a few %, and you try to maximize volume.

Further, with the taxpayers getting equity in these firms, in the long run this deal wouldn't have been too bad. And - that was as close as they were going to get from a bi-partisanship perspective. Now it's gonna be nearly impossible to get agreement on anything that can get through Congress and the White House. Can we wait 4 months until Obama is hopefully in office, or will be back in the Stone Age by then?

[paixa3]

Where is your house? I have had several bankers ask if I would like some loans.....and I do not mean the crappy type. There STILL is money in the economy, just not between THE LARGEST banks. That is fine with me.

So, please do not buy Paulson's BS.

[XME]

As I was watched the news today during and following the vote, I realized that our country is being rung by a bunch of 4 year olds!

[Aleka4]

Oh give credit where credit is due!

They are more like 12 year olds.

[darker]

REPUBLICANS PROVED THEY CAN'T GOVERN!
what more proof do we want than Bush, the crashed economy, corruption, lies, and McCain's
EMPTY DRAMATICS last week?

MCCain is leader of THE GOP GREEDY BUNCH OF OBSCENE republican GAMBLERS
that crashed the Economy of America.
Their only "feelings" are GREED AND MORE GREED.

NO MORE YEARS for corrupt Republican SPOILED FRAT-BRATS.
Enough is enough.
Republicans proved they can't govern.
NO MORE YEARS TO REPUBLICAN LIARS.

[avraamjack]

.
Would it not be cleaner to create new banks with the .7 trillion ?
.
You could create 20 hefty banks and in 5 years sell the stock to the public.
.
No moral hazard, increased lending competition. All stated goals are met.
.

[patricethree]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aSKSoiNbnQY0

Sounds like the Dems need to take some of the blame. Pelosi and her 17% approval rating should be asked to resign. She is nuts to stand up there and spout blame.

[BlueZoo]

Pelosi really ticked me off with that partisan speech immediately before the vote. She double-dog dared the Democrats to vote against the plan and many did, thus giving good cover to the Republicans who can point and say "Demcrats didn't even like the plan!" She's no leader! Playing poltical games with our homes, our money, our future is just beyond the pale! I'm sick of all of them! Throw every incumbent OUT!

[Belleweathered]

The low approval rating does not belong to Nancy Pelosi alone!
Yesterday's events crystalized exactly why congress as a whole has low approval ratings- REPUBLICANS continue to take this country hostage!
If they have a legitimate plan, WHERE THE HELL IS IT???
If they were legitimatly opposed to this bill on principle, why did they blame Pelosi? Why did they not speak the truth to the American people as to exactly why they voted no?

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09292008.html
I belive Mike Whitneys take on this , after all he has been predicting it for 3 years.

[sleek]

Republicanism does not work and is doomed to failure. How can you have people who don't believe/don't want/don't like government running the government?

[jwalter]

I am absolutely not a Republican. rejecting the bailout bill is just an example of the representatives actually representing their constituents for once. have you seen the polls on this matter? voting "for" would be political suicide for anyone up for reelection in less that two moths.

[fuzzywuzzy6]

The bailout is a really bad idea, but the republicans and democrats are so far apart on what the new economic structure should look like and the new role of government that may never reach an agreement. We need new models. We need a new brain trust.

[jwalter]

interesting how you folks are deriding people for voting against the wishes of George W. Bush. This bailout bill is still corporate cronyism if i've ever seen it. your federal reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is intentionally holding the effective funds rate below 2% to keep banks from lending to each other until the federal government passes a bill to hand over 700 billion dollars. this is where your credit crisis lies: at the doorstep of the Federal Reserve System. The banks have no shortage of cash (where else do you think it went?). In order to truly understand what is going on, you would have to know that the Federal Reserve is not federal at all, but a privately owned system of banks.

[montemalone]

I very much do not want this boondoggle passed.
The problem with the repubs that only now stand up to Bush is that they never did it over the past 7+ years, when he was inflating the budget and deficit. Now they're only trying to protect their own jobs.
I'd like to see a breakdown of repubs that vetoed the package compared to repubs running for reelection in November. Same with the dems.

[justsomeguywhocameby]

All house members are up for reelection.

[greenchili]

You are correct. I think alot of people should read up on what proposals are being debated. We are going to give the 1% crowd 700billion because they lost their money in their "STOCK MARKET", well welcome to earth corporate America. Everyone should have seen this coming when they changed the bankruptcy rules, (the economy was going to tank!). Don't give them a dime, let them feel some pain. After all "we" the 95%, have been feeling the pain for 8 long years.

[KnitMe34]

Ron, you've echoed what I have been thinking for the past week. This was pure political play by McCain, trying to force Bush to dance, and Bush said no. Any act by the Dems is secondary comnpared to that dynamic, and the fact that the bill failed is proof that the Republican party is a shambles. The challenge the Dems face is to craft a real plan that can win enough support not just to pass, but to actually rescusitate the American economy. We need statecraft, not politics.

[JBS]

You all need to pull your heads out of your 4th point of contact and recognize one thing.

American voters are OVERWHELMINGLY AGAINST **ANY** Wall Street bail-out.

The republicans are having it both ways.

They get the Democrats to push it through, and rescue the Wall Street Thieves who have been the republican party's money-bags power base for the last 75 years ...

... while the republicans go out campaigning against profligate Democrats for using taxpayer's money for corporate welfare.

AND THAT **IS** A WINNING CAMPAIGN THEME.

I just can't understand how the Democrats can be so stupid.

Bailing out Wall Street won't help the average American, in fact, it's going to do immense harm to average Americans. We'll end up with higher taxes, higher interest rates, higher foreclosure rates, lower wages and fewer jobs.

Wall Street's Daddy Warbucks gets the gold mine, and working Americans get the shaft.

[Yermammy]

I second that.

[montemalone]

I third that, or second you, or, yeah.

[CaptainStormfield]

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09292008.html

[antenna123]

I love how the basic premise - that this bailout was a good thing - is accepted.

Well it shouldn't be. You can't fix an economy with government subsidies or protectionism. it's been tried before.

I'm glad this failed.

[themainpoint]

Me, too, antenna1234. If we are going to give 700 bil away during a recession, I'd like to see congress look at all the options and take their time to carefully deliberate.

And Suskind says "So, how did we get a war inside the Republican party that may leave the economy in shambles? " Answer: The economy has been in shambles for quite a while, led by a republican administration that started an unnecessary trillion+ war and a congress that went along.

[antenna123]

Exactly. As if the economy was doing fine until this happened. The bank failures are a symptom, and not the cause.

[ejga]

Frankly, with a few exceptions, I'm sick and tired of the whole lot of them - both sides of the aisle.

I think it would be great if the electorate rose up en masse and just voted all of them out and brought in Independents, Greens, Libertarians, etc. to run Congress and put either Nader, Barr, or McKinney in the White House - and told the Democrats and Republicans to take a hike.

Certainly they couldn't do worse, they may actually do better, and it would be a definite wake-up call to those who want to play politcs when so many are suffering. What a bunch of adolescent ignoramuses.

[ProgressiveVoice]

YES! YES! YES! This is the first time in my life that I have ever felt like not even bothering to vote. It's us, the people, against them - politicians and corporations.

I wonder what would happen if they held an election but no candidates got any votes?

[justsomeguywhocameby]

I cosign

[GrainOSand]

Humility appeals to me as a quality that allows for infinite growth but no bloating.

The appropriate political response to all of this is to let it happen. It meets the need of both Parties to let it happen. The free market zealots can painfully ride out the storm of not only their failed policies, which came out of their flawed paradigm, which emanated from their simplemindedness. They can also slide down the fiery razor blade of dissent, in political flames, due to the backlash that will occur from the electorate as individual lives and fortunes are taxed heavily for being fooled in 2000 and sanctioning mass demise.

If this is to be our phoenix moment, let the Democrats emerge as the Party that rises from the ash-heap of America knocked out by greed, theft, and deception. Let it be a wakeup call to the revived Democratic Party that it too can be consumed by idiocy. Let this be the change we need, the change we thought, that new day that answers the fierce urgency of now. Here is an opportunity to take the fervor in speeches and apply it directly to the sitiation [sic]. Yes, there will be pain but there always is in labors of love. Let the reasonable band together, stand together, say enough, and not this time, and have it really mean something. Let us strike up the band and keep the beat bunpin’!

With humility

[Yermammy]

So where do you stand on this bill GrainOSand? Yea or Nay? I say the Democrats that resisted Nancy are the brave ones. The rethugs (that voted no for entirely different reasons) are harder to read.

[GrainOSand]

The appropriate political response to all of this is to let it happen and my reading of the patient that is America says radical surgery is needed.

Radical surgery would be to allow the markets to self-correct. That would cause a public stimulus that congress could never match. It would force the press to report on who is to blame as they watch their own portfolios shrink, and it would force the American people to pay attention because bellies will be aching from lack of food because mommy and daddy are under pressure. If you really read what I was trying to say above, I am calling for transformation not just electing a new president. Barack Obama has been touted to be transformational. Let him lead us into transformation by taking a hard stance on this Bill. He will do not that but that is what I think is required. Mr. Obama is walking that most difficult of tightropes and if he wins I will consider it destiny because the forces of evil are working day and night against him. He has to fight against perceptions of race, deceptions and hate, a compromised press, and a rapidly changing world in distress. That is why he has my support even though he is forced to play a game I despise. He cannot win if he does not play the silly game. This situation might just be the ticket to take him over the hump of doubt.

[desertdweller]

Someone said "as one campaigns, one governs." Now that we (the American people) have had a test drive of the "Straight Talk Express," do we really want to buy it?"