"I don't think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful. I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle."

- Barack Obama, acknowledging he doesn't know how to do bipartisanship and that his whole post-partisan gestalt is about as fact-based as the Easter Bunny. But he does know hope and change!

Politico's Crypt blog reports both Obama and McCain will be back in D.C. for a vote on the bailout. This is the plan according to a Senate GOP aide:

The Senate will vote on the economic rescue plan tomorrow night after a series of stacked votes starting at 7:30.

The structure is this:

The Senate will call up H.R. 1424, the text of which will be substituted with the economic rescue plan (a Dodd amendment which must have the consent of both the Majority and Minority Leaders). The only other amendment in order will be a Sanders amendment that will be handled by a voice vote.

If we can't trust her to tell the truth about her lip liner, what can we trust her on?

H/t Allahpundit, whom I am sparing the musical stylings of Hinder by not adding a "Lips of an Angel" YouTube to this post.

Regardless of whether a bailout passes, this is a message that has to get out, not just for McCain's sake, but for the sake of capitalism in our country.

In the clip used in this ad, Clinton was asked if the Democrats weren't being just a bit disingenuous by saying it was "unbridled capitalism" that caused the crisis instead of acknowledging their part in propping up Fannie and Freddie. Clinton was honest in saying that they do bear some responsibility for the conundrum we're in now.

The message of Republicans (+ Bill Clinton) and Democrats on what got us here are diametrically opposed. Democrats want to evade responsibility and are brazen enough to blame the markets for their own meddling, thereby justifying—surprise!—loads of government intervention even beyond a possible bailout. Republicans have somewhat tepidly offered the notion that it was not the market, but government intervention in the market, that caused the problem. They are right, but conservative blogs, commentators, and honest reporters have done a lot of the heavy lifting in this department, as Republicans on the Hill tried to play bipartisan softball (and got hit with a series of partisan pitches for their efforts).

McCain has not helped by following the Democrat model of blaming Wall Street greed for all of our problems. I understand his need to sound a populist note, but what would also be rather populist is to explain how liberal elites in Washington had crashed the credit markets you and I depend upon as part of another failed social engineering experiment, which by the way yielded their party millions in campaign donations. They repeatedly ignored warnings of a crisis and, in many cases, worked against greater regulation of Fannie and Freddie only to claim it was John McCain's (yes, the McCain of McCain-Feingold) strict adherence to deregulation that got us here.

The unfortunate part of the messaging has been that until this ad from McCain, Bill Clinton (ostensibly a Democrat and Obama supporter) had been one of the best political figures at articulating the truth about Fannie, Freddie and culpability of Dems.

I watched floor speeches yesterday by Republicans for and against the bailout, and saw little of it. McCain pointedly missed the opportunity to wallop Obama on the issue in the first half of the debate Friday. When Obama trumpeted his own alleged calls for reform and blamed the crisis on deregulation, McCain demurred, only saying, "I supported reform also."

Even with markets holding strong today (and let's hope things stay that way), we may be on the brink of a huge, depressing, but necessary intervention in the markets. I strain against the idea, and hope it won't be necessary in its gargantuan form, but many conservatives I trust (Tom Coburn, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, The Heritage Foundation), have conceded that something probably must be done. McCain and Republicans cannot allow the lesson taken from this to be that if it hadn't been for those dastardly markets granted all that pesky freedom, everything would have been fine.

McCain making that argument will get more coverage than anything out of the mouths of conservative House or Senate members. I'm glad to see him going there, both on a philosophical and political level.

The McCain campaign has a new "web ad" out that mocks Barack Obama for a comment he made yesterday. After weeks of mocking John McCain for his claim that the fundamentals of the American economy are strong, Obama said yesterday:

"After this immediate problem, we've got the long-term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows."

It's not surprising that he would say this. Although his political advisers have urged him to use McCain's words on the campaign trail, his economic advisers have been saying, in effect, that McCain was right. And sometimes they say it in public. Last week, Obama economic adviser Jason Furman told the Washington Post: "This is a major fiscal problem in the short run, but it doesn't alter the long-term fiscal picture."

Sounds a lot like "the fundamentals of the economy are strong."

Here's the ad script:

ANNCR: Who's Barack Obama?

First, Obama attacked McCain.

Then said:

BARACK OBAMA: "We've got the long term fundamentals that will really make sure this economy grows."

ANNCR: Strong fundamentals?

Is Obama saying McCain's right?

Or is Obama saying his own attacks are shameless?

Either way, Obama's a hypocrite.

JOHN MCCAIN: I'm John McCain and I approve this message.

I'm eager to read the lengthy, front-page story in tomorrow's New York Times on the mixed messages from the Obama campaign and how such poor communications reflects a campaign in disarray.

With an assist from Bill Clinton:

On MSNBC this morning, John McCain said: “I think Americans have yet to fully understand this [bailout] is not in the interests of Wall Street or Washington insiders." During his remarks today in Des Moines, McCain provided a couple examples of how the credit crunch affects ordinary voters: keeping businesses and students from getting loans. Policy wise, McCain said the Treasury should exercise its recently granted authority to purchase mortgages and use the Exchange Stabilization Fund as "creatively as possible to provide backstop for accounts across our financial system to maintain confidence on the part of savers and investors." He also endorsed raising the FDIC deposit insurance cap to $250,000.

Full remarks here:

We are in the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes. Congressional inaction has put every American and the entire economy at the gravest risk. Yesterday the country and the world looked to Washington for leadership, and Congress once again came up empty-handed.

I am disappointed at the lack of resolve and bipartisan good will among members of both parties to fix this problem. Bipartisanship is a tough thing; never more so when you’re trying to take necessary but publicly unpopular action. But inaction is not an option.

Businesses all over the country cannot borrow to finance their own operations and pay their bills. If we do nothing, many may fail.

Sonic Corporation, a drive-in restaurant chain based in Oklahoma, learned on Thursday that one of its lenders, GE Capital, had stopped extending new loans to the chain's franchisees. That will block plans to rebuild restaurants, add equipment and open new locations. When small businesses like Sonic franchisees can't borrow, contractors don't get the remodeling work, equipment-makers lose sales, and restaurants go out of business. It hurts the entire community.

When financing dries up, students can’t get loans.

In Wisconsin, more than 100 Milwaukee Area Technical College students couldn’t access private loans to fund their education. Fortunately the school was able to come up with emergency loans, but this temporary arrangement cannot continue. Markets need to work so that people can get financial help and students can be educated.

From Ezra Klein’s blog comes this lovely“let them eat cake” gem from Robert Borosage, co-Director of the lefty activist group Campaign for America’s Future:

The bail out will take place simply to avoid that depression. But depressions have some salutary effects - the scoundrels go belly up, the weakest get purged. And, in the wake of the disaster, people demand strict regulation of the money lenders to keep their greed in check, and government spends money on the real economy to put people back to work.

Ah yes – the many wonderful “salutary effects” of a depression. I especially love the really macho stuff about the “weakest getting purged.” At the risk of providing Mr. Borosage with a clue, the “weakest” aren’t the guys at Lehman who were pulling down eight figures a year until a couple of weeks ago and whose comeuppance so obviously thrills Mr. Borosage. The weakest among us are those on the economic margins. While a depression might not “purge” them, it will surely hit them hardest. They’ll be the ones without jobs and without the means to heat their homes. Actually, those who are truly the weakest won’t have homes to heat.

But as Mr. Borosage would probably argue, you can’t make a delicious omelet of government hyperactivity without breaking a few eggs. It’s funny. Organizations like Campaign for America’s Future are supposed to care about the weakest among us. Perhaps they do. But obviously they care a whole lot more about their political agenda and ambitions.

If he manages to get through Thursday's debate without saying something insane, I will be floored:

As he exited the hotel for his dinner break, Biden was asked “Senator, can we get your reaction to the House bill not passing?”

Biden interrupted the question with a “Hey folks,” to reporters and then said “Oh, things are going well.”

His press secretary later said he misheard the question. Here's to his mishearing a few things on Thursday.

Via Drudge, children are taught to sing praises of The One:

Creepy.

There's an astounding admission buried in this NYT account of the failed bailout vote yesterday:

Aides to Mr. Obama said he had not directly reached out to try to sway any House Democrats who opposed the measure. But where Mr. McCain had accused Mr. Obama of taking a hands-off approach to the financial crisis, Democratic advisers said they believed that Mr. McCain now had a role in the legislation’s failure.

Really? The man who was ostensibly working the phones such that he was confident enough to predict the passage of the bill in prepared remarks sent to reporters yesterday, in fact, made no phone calls to assure the passage of said bill. The man whose party has no particular philosophical aversion to government interference in the markets and is in control of Congress. The man who's been assuring voters of his very serious weighing in by phone from the campaign trail...didn't actually pick up a phone. This is the real Obama. He is a leader of crowds, not crises.

This won't be a story, but it should be, and Republicans and McCain should point it out. The argument against Dems is the utter lack of competent leadership by Obama and Pelosi, not whining about a Pelosi speech.

Pelosi lost more than 12 of her fellow California Democrats, close friends and allies, and Committee chairs in this vote. Obama failed to take a public position on the vote or to convince any teetering Democrats with promises of a trip to their Districts or other help from the Messiah himself, losing Dems from the Chicago area and much of the Congressional Black Caucus with whom he could have had sway.

And yet, the guy who got his hands dirty, tried to make a few things happen, and didn't quite get the ball across the goal line is the one who takes the political heat for this. Which is why, as Bill Kristol and Dean Barnett have suggested, McCain may as well go all-out on the leadership front. It's where he's comfortable working, and where Obama will never dare to walk ahead of him.

Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi willfully ignored the impending crisis for years before they suddenly saw the light and were able to blame a politically palatable entity for it—Republican embrace of "unbridled" capitalism and deregulation. They too seem to have reaped the benefits of inaction, succeeding in pinning the blame on the markets they meddled with, letting their vulnerable members oppose an unpopular bill, and possibly getting a second run at a bailout bill filled with the pork they cut out the first time around.

In Washington, sometimes "leadership" ain't all its cracked up to be. But isn't the political windfall of inaction—conveniently kvetching without responsibility—usually a privilege reserved for the minority party? Pelosi and Co. seem to be enjoying it no matter the circumstances. Maybe that's the "change" Obama's been talking about bringing to Washington.

Mark Leibovich reports:

There were a few cringes within Obama World over the weekend after Bob Shrum, the longtime Democratic operative, essentially placed Barack Obama in the White House. ...

It was Mr. Shrum who planted this memorable Election Night kiss of death onto John Kerry in 2004: 'Can I be the first to call you Mr. President' Mr. Shrum said to the Massachusetts senator after early exit polls showed him defeating George W. Bush.

After television networks called Florida for Al Gore four years earlier, Mr. Shrum declared to a group of Gore aides in Nashville that 'We’ve finally pushed the boulder up the hill,' he said, according to two people who were with him that night. He was seen hugging and offering congratulations to several people at the Loews Hotel.

Shrum is famously 0 for 8 in the presidential elections with which he's been associated. Luckily for Obama, Shrum has stayed on the sidelines this year. The Obama machine - one of the most effective and efficient campaigns in recent memory - is run by Chicago operative David Axelrod and longtime Gephardt hand David Plouffe. This may be the year the curse of Shrum is broken.

The rise of new powers in recent years has led to the theory of economic decoupling. The theory says that, as places like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and to a lesser extent Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries rise, they are less dependent on the American economy. Problems in the American economy therefore matter less to these new powers, as they can always trade with one another. They don't require American capital or even confidence in American economic power and leadership. They've "decoupled."

Interesting theory. Except recent events have exposed it to be, what's the word, totally false.

The presidential race remains highly volatile. A recent Diageo/Hotline poll found 23 percent of voters are undecided and another 9 percent saying they still might change their minds.

Now, that doesn’t mean over a third of the electorate are truly swing voters. Partisans in this crowd will probably vote for the party they have supported in the past. But even half that number could swing the race from nail-biter to landslide depending on how these voters break.

Second, we probably won’t know much about these voters for several more weeks. Research indicates a high percentage of self-identified independents, often one-fourth or more, won’t decide until the last two weeks before the election or even Election Day.

Finally, undecided voters harbor very different questions about the two candidates. Mark Blumenthal posted this interesting nugget yesterday:

The results I found most interesting involved the voters that are undecided or uncertain about Obama and McCain:

[T]hese voters harbor doubts about the shortcomings they perceive in Obama and in McCain. By a 34-point margin (52 percent to 18 percent), they see McCain as "more prepared to lead the country" than Obama. And by a nearly opposite 31-point margin (50 percent to 21 percent), they say that Obama "better understands the needs and priorities" of people like them.

The key difference, omitted from the print piece, is that the Obama numbers on the "prepared" question was much lower among the uncertain voters than among all voters. Similarly, the McCain number on the "understands" question was lower among the uncertain voters than among all voters on the full sample.

In the end, these swing voters will have to pick which of these two questions--“who is better to lead” vs. “who understands people like me”--matters more. That choice will decide the next president.

First, some bad news: TWS contributing editor P.J. O'Rourke has been diagnosed with cancer. The good news: The cancer is highly curable, and O'Rourke has written a very funny and thoughtful LA Times op-ed in light of his diagnosis.

Get well soon.

(Hat tip: Mark Hemingway)

Drop what you're doing and read Republican consultant Mike Murphy's extremely entertaining column in this week's Time magazine. It's about the strange rituals associated with prepping candidates for debates. Here's a taste:

It is vital that your candidate not hear your opponent's answers for the first time onstage, since that will often lead to panic if a candidate feels the opponent's answer is far better than his or her own. Hmmm. Great answer. I've got nothing like that. I'm a loser. I'm going to lose this debate. In high school, Belinda would have wanted to go to the prom with him, not me. Anger. MUST ... ATTACK ... NOW!!! At that point something very bad usually happens.

Classic.

Marc Ambinder notes that both Obama and McCain now favor raisng the FDIC cap from $100,000 to $250,000.

Jonathan Martin reports the RNC will spend $5 million airing the ad in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Virginia and Indiana.

Wise words from Megan McArdle on Nancy Pelosi's failure of leadership yesterday on the bailout vote:

Pelosi screwed up royally. She is the Democratic Tom DeLay. Newt Gingrich was an ideologue, but Tom DeLay was simply a partisan, most keenly interested in maximizing his party's political power. Pelosi cut a deal in which, as far as I can tell, every single Republican in a safe seat had to vote yes so that the Democrats could maximize their no votes. Given that the Republican caucus is pretty much in open revolt, this was beyond moronic. She then spent a week openly and repeatedly blaming the Republicans and the Bush administration for the current crisis. The way she set things up, it was "Heads I win, tails you lose": vote for the deal and I'll paint you as heartless reactionaries bailing out our fat cat friends. If you're going to do that, you'd better make sure you have some goddamn margin for error in your own party. She didn't. Then she got up and delivered yet another speech blaming the Republicans for the bailout deal she was about to pass.

As Karl Rove said on the radio yesterday, there were a number of Democrats Pelosi should have been able to win over had she tried:

I think criticism of Pelosi would have gained a lot more traction had House Republicans simply voted against the bill out of principle. But the Republicans trotted out a petulant argument that some members voted against the bill because Pelosi gave a partisan speech prior to the vote. And their folly rather than Pelosi's failure of leadership understandably became the center of attention.

(Hat tip: Johnny Dollar's Place; Hot Air.)

So here’s the state of play as the Great Depression redux edges ominously closer. The Paulson Plan failed today, with a solid majority of Republicans voting against it. The opposition Republicans fall into two camps:

1) The Mike Pence doctrinaires who welcome a free market curative like a Depression for our current woes. I guess they view it as sort of the economic equivalent of that stuff you drink the night before a colonoscopy. As misguided as Pence and his minions are, they at least have a certain nobility complementing their foolishness. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that a significant subdivision of the Pence camp rejects the counsel of virtually everyone who knows anything about economics and instead believes that our current situation isn’t so dire. Call it conservative magical thinking.

2) A bunch of other Republicans who would have voted for the Paulson Plan had Nancy Pelosi not said some stuff that hurt their feelings just prior to the roll call. They had thought passing the Paulson Plan was an urgent national priority. Then, the Speaker said some stuff that made personal pique take priority. Outdumbing the Pence Republicans was a tall task – this coterie of GOP representatives was up to the task.

So what will happen? We’re in uncharted territory here, and I don’t want to tacitly posit an economic competence that I lack. However, the many people I’ve spoken with who do understand economics and our financial system are gravely concerned – all of them. The only place you can find people who aren’t gravely concerned are on Capitol Hill and in the media, the two places in our society where people are paid to offer opinions on things they know nothing about. Suffice to say that if our banking and financial system doesn’t recover its footing, the overwhelming consensus is that we’re headed for very rough times.

Here’s what’s been lost in the debate while people on both the right and left have offered ignorant jeremiads about “bailing out Wall Street.” If the economy tilts into a deep recession or even a depression, it’s not the wealthy or even Barack Obama’s cherished middle class who will pay the deepest price. In any such circumstance, it’s the people on the economic margins who get hurt the most. The ones without a nest-egg and without a 401(k) are the ones who have no safety net when they lose their jobs and health insurance. If unemployment goes from 6% to 10%, it won’t be the investment bankers who start heating their homes at 56 degrees in January. Populist rhetoric is almost always misguided. That has never been more the case than over the past week.

In case you’re looking for political ramifications, the news is not good if you’re of the Republican persuasion. As much as I would like to lay all of our forthcoming problems at the feet of the House members whose feelings Nancy Pelosi so easily bruised, they’re a bit player in this drama. A Republican occupies the White House, and the buck stops with him. It’s a Republican economy, and it’s a law of political physics that we will pay the price for its shortcomings.

In case you’re looking for ways forward, there are plenty out there. A few days ago, Bill Kristol linked to a provocative piece by Harvard professor Lucian Bebchuk that suggested the best way to recapitalize our faltering financial institutions would be via rights offerings backstopped by the federal government. Translated into English, this plan would address the financial system’s most urgent need – recapitalizing the financial institutions that need it – directly. What’s more, the recapitalization would come from shareholders, not taxpayers. It likely wouldn’t cost Joe Sixpack a red cent. It would also keep the federal government out of the banking business, a matter rightly near and dear to the hearts of libertarian leaning Republicans. And yet they never considered this plan, such is the state of their current non-constructive pose.

The Paulson Plan only addresses (or should I say addressed) the need for recapitalization indirectly, by providing the funds necessary by gobbling up presently undesirable mortgage backed securities. The Republicans could have spent the past two vital weeks coming behind a plan like Professor Bebchuk’s (or another one) assuming Paulson’s plan was unacceptable. Instead, they dithered. Some in the GOP obviously would rather have a Great Depression redux instead of taking the necessary steps to prevent it. Call it a twisted matter of principle. My point here isn’t to lobby for the Bebchuk Plan. My point is to show that there are potential solutions out there that the political class hasn’t seriously (or even frivolously) addressed.

There’s an opportunity here for the McCain campaign. Of course, there’s also an opportunity for the Obama campaign. Answers are needed, and lord knows the two senators have a big enough platform to provide them. But as far as Obama is concerned, his “prudence” by now is a known quantity. We won’t see any game changing propositions emanate from this preternaturally cautious politician. Obama lags events - he doesn’t lead them.

That leaves it up to McCain. Frankly, whether he can politically overcome a millstone the size of this economic crisis is questionable. Let’s face it – the financial meltdown is the equivalent of Mark Foley’s salacious instant messages on stilts. But there remains the matter of duty. House Democrats, House Republicans, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans and the White House have all been unable to move the ball forward. Collectively, they’ve spent the past ten days squabbling over a badly flawed bill that even if passed may still not have saved us from a very deep recession or worse.

The only guy out there with the political juice to offer something new and get it seriously considered is John McCain. Even if he got a good bill passed, it might not be enough for him to win the election. But it would be his finest hour.

No one wants to take ownership of the task of rescuing the economy right now. The Bush-Paulson plan has failed. The administration, House Democrats, and House Republicans (above all) have all proved unable to deliver. But there is someone who might be able to save the economy--and incidentally the Republican party: John McCain.

He should come back to D.C. But this time he needs to take charge--either by laying out the outlines of his own plan, or presiding over meetings at which a real plan that can pass is cobbled together. He might also insist on the immediate passage of a couple of provisions (raising or removing FDIC insurance limits, for example) that could mitigate the damage that could be done over the next few days.

It’s time for McCain to act decisively, and to lead, as he did with the surge. No one else seems up to it.

UPDATE: The following statement from the McCain campaign is fair enough, as far as it goes. But surely its logic is this: if this is really “a national economic crisis,” and others have failed to lead, then McCain should lead—by re-suspending his campaign (fine, let observers mock him when he announces this), and leading his party and the Congress towards a solution. They won’t mock if he can pull this off:

All: Please see the following statement by McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin:

“From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Senators Obama and Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others. Their partisan attacks were an effort to gain political advantage during a national economic crisis. By doing so, they put at risk the homes, livelihoods and savings of millions of American families.

“Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain, and refused to even say if he supported the final bill.

“Just before the vote, when the outcome was still in doubt, Speaker Pelosi gave a strongly worded partisan speech and poisoned the outcome.

“This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country.” --McCain-Palin senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin

UPDATE II: John McCain is having a “Small Business Roundtable Discussion” in Des Moines, Iowa tomorrow morning. Should be an upbeat discussion!

McCain can explain why his fellow Republicans defeated legislation that McCain had basically endorsed, apparently because Nancy Pelosi was mean to them. Is the McCain campaign sure he wouldn’t be better off coming back to D.C. and trying to help solve the problem?

Reps. Boehner, Blunt, and Cantor just held a press conference, during which each of them blamed the loss of at least 12 Republican votes on Pelosi's floor speech, which struck a partisan tone that made teetering Republicans set their teeth and vote against her.

Republicans largely pulled their punches during the floor debate today, avoiding blaming the Democrats who deserve some blame for this crisis. They clearly felt the delicate bipartisan nature of the project was betrayed by Pelosi's fire-breathing, and they called her on it, Cantor holding up her speech in his hands as the "reason this did not pass today."

Democrats have been blaming Republicans for sinking the effort, but 97 Democrats voted against the bill. Cantor placed the blame, not only on Pelosi's inability to listen to Republican members, but her inability to lead her own party, claiming Republicans brought important bills to the floor when they were in the majority only when they were ready to deliver votes.

"We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House," House Minority Leader John Boehner said. Pelosi's words, the Ohio Republican said, "poisoned our conference, caused a number of members that we thought we could get, to go south."

I'm looking for text of Pelosi's speech. Update: Very rough transcript below the fold.

Update: I think the House Republicans handicapped themselves by not making the central thrust of their argument against Pelosi about her inability to lead her own party. The criticism of Pelosi's speech is an easy one to parry for House Dems, who will say, "Really, one little speech is all that was required for you to endanger your country?" Even if the speech did matter, and it was undoubtedly a petty, impolitic move, it's hard to make that argument too loud without looking like they're whining.

Pelosi's inability to lead her own party and, indeed, her inability to even read them— she evidently believed she had the votes to make it happen— is closer to a political winner as an argument for Republicans. She is just an utter hot mess of a leader, and the opinion polls on Congress show it.

The argument:

Pelosi has 235 members. She needed 218. She could spare 17 members and still pass the bill.

The GOP spotted her 65 members, for a bill that made most Republicans' skin crawl in both broad outline and in terms of detail.

That meant Pelosi could afford to lose 82 Democrats.

She lost 95.

Regardless, we're going to be covering this bickering for another week or so, and who knows where the markets will go. Where are McCain and Obama right now?

The tally with just a few seconds remaining in the original voting time is 213 Nays and 192 Yeas with only 26 votes remaining.

Update: In the words of President Bush, "this sucker's going down." 228 against, 205 for, with one not voting. There would have to be some serious arm-twisting in the next few minutes to get this passed.

Now, what do they do?

Update: 227-206 was the final vote, with one abstention. The Dow was down 700 at its lowest point today. It's now down 550.

The extent to which Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama himself are avoiding blame for this crisis despite symbiotic relationships with those who caused it is truly amazing.

The nerve with which they hold forth about "unbridled capitalism" and "deregulation" while conveniently forgetting their culpability in government interference in the market, which first pressured banks (via Community Reinvestment Act) and then incentivized banks (via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to make risky loans to people with troubled credit history.

Obama has been heavily involved with a certain group of community organizers that encouraged such behavior since the very beginning of his career— ACORN. I'm going to pull out a little bit of Stanley Kurtz's piece on this connection, but read the whole thing. The details are devastating, even if you know the basic outline already:

[Prominent Chicago ACORN activist Madeline] Talbott continued her effort to, as she put it, drag banks "kicking and screaming" into high-risk loans. A September 1993 story in The Chicago Sun-Times presents her as the leader of an initiative in which five area financial institutions (including two of her former targets, now plainly cowed - Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings) were "participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories."

What made this program different from others, the paper added, was the participation of Fannie Mae - which had agreed to buy up the loans. "If this pilot program works," crowed Talbott, "it will send a message to the lending community that it's OK to make these kind of loans."

Well, the pilot program "worked," and Fannie Mae's message that risky loans to minorities were "OK" was sent. The rest is financial-meltdown history.

IT would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.

As for Frank and Co., watch them deny, deny, deny the crisis in 2004, a year after the Bush administration tried to tighten up Fannie/Freddie oversight, so they could keep the gravy train moving. Republicans are not blameless in this by any means, as they still had a majority when reforms were suggested, but the brazenness with which Democrats are blaming today's crisis on the market they manipulated for their own gain should not be overlooked. Spread this video.

The Sunday Times reports that over the weekend book publisher Martin Rynja had his London home firebombed by three Muslims who found one of the books his firm is publishing to be blasphemous:

Security officials believe Rynja was targeted for assassination because his firm, Gibson Square, is preparing to publish a romantic novel about Aisha, child bride of the Prophet Muhammad. The Jewel of Medina, by the first-time American author Sherry Jones, describes an imaginary sex scene between the prophet and his 14-year-old wife.

It was withdrawn from publication in America last month after its publisher there, Random House, said it feared a violent reaction by “a small radical segment” of Muslims. It said “credible and unrelated sources” had warned that the book could incite violence.

Random House reacted after Islamic scholars objected to its contents, saying it treated the wife of the Prophet as a sex object. One of them, Denise Spellberg, of the University of Texas at Austin, described the novel as “soft-core pornography”, referring to a scene in which Muhammad consummates his marriage to Aisha. She called it “a declaration of war” and a “national security issue”.

At the time, her warnings were dismissed by the author. “Anyone who reads the book will not be offended,” said Jones. “I wrote the book with the utmost respect for Islam.” However, Jones admitted receiving death threats after the book was withdrawn.

It would have been perfectly reasonable for Random House to spike this book if it had a general policy against publishing smut or religiously insensitive material. But how shameful is it that a major American book publisher openly admits it decided not to publish a book simply because it feared the violent reactions of radical Muslims? How shameful is it that an American author has to travel overseas to exercise her First Amendment rights?

Post-debate “snap” surveys aimed at determining a “winner” are in vogue given the proliferation of polling by media outlets this election cycle. But what do the results really mean for the November election?

Pollster.com summarizes the five post-debate polls (and a focus group) from last Friday night and provides several points to consider in interpreting these numbers. Read the full analysis here.

Two of the five surveys, Gallup/USA Today and CNN, gave the edge to Obama on the question of “who did a better job.” Two others, Los Angeles Times and Zogby reported much closer results in their surveys. The CBS/Knowledge Networks poll was a little unique, focusing only on “uncommitted” voters in its sample. It also gave the advantage to Obama on the “who performed better” question. (Democrat Stan Greenberg conducted a focus group with “undecided” voters in Missouri, and his results are also discussed in the Pollster.com post).

The first question anyone should ask when reading these results: Does “who did a better job” contain any real electoral consequences? Mark Blumenthal sums it up well:

What does "winning" a debate mean? Is it about which candidate "did a better job" as perceived by the voters? Or is it about which candidate made the most progress in growing or solidifying their support? While most of the pollsters have emphasized their results on the "who did a better job" question, what most of us want to know is whether the debate made a difference in overall vote preference. That latter issue is much harder to gauge from these first "snap" surveys.

Post-debate polls often just reflect partisan predispositions and don’t mean the candidates changed a lot of minds. Blumenthal points out the configuration of the underlying survey samples shapes the results. A couple of the polls noted more self-identified Democrats than Republicans watched the debates, another likely producing a pro-Obama tilt. CNN notes this, for example, about its survey:

The results may be favoring Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tuned in to the debate. Of the debate-watchers questioned in this poll, 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans and 30 percent as independents.

No doubt the media will report at least this many polls picking the “winner” of Thursday night’s vice presidential debate (and the two remaining presidential debates). Blumenthal raises some important caveats about how we interpret these results, especially when it comes to their ultimate electoral implications.

If you think it’s just the mainstream American media that are strongly biased against Governor Sarah Palin you need to take a look at Palin's press coverage on the other side of the Atlantic. Journalists and commentators in Europe have now gone completely negative on John McCain’s female running mate.

Germany’s influential Der Spiegel provided two examples of the anti-Palin sentiment gripping the press. The first Spiegel Online piece, titled “Palin chit-chats herself into world politics”--the difficult-to-translate German title “Palin plauscht sich in die Weltpolitik” is even more condescending--mocks Sarah Palin’s recent trip to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. In essence, Der Spiegel argues that Palin’s “crash course in foreign policy” left her completely clueless, forcing the Alaska Governor “to chit-chat with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the meaning of the name of his son Mirwais” (which, as we learn, translates to “Light of the House”). While the German magazine admits at least that the press was only privy to the first 29 seconds of the Palin-Karzai bilateral, it should be a no-brainer that there is nothing wrong in opening a first-time meeting with a visiting foreign dignitary from an allied country with some “get-to-know-you” conversation. The correspondent unfairly casts judgment on Sarah Palin Palin after 29 seconds into her meeting with President Karzai.

Then, to top the day off, Spiegel Online also posted a photo album titled “America’s Power Women: Wise Letters and Dead Caribous” covering 13 U.S. female political leaders ranging from, inter alia, Abigail Smith Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin. The article portrays all the women very favorably, with the exception of Sarah Palin.

Ahem, this is not a parody entitled "The Seduction of the Swing States" (emphasis mine):

The rain pouring down, his jacket off, his white dress-shirt clinging to his body, Barack Obama played to a crowd in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat since 1964.

At this rate, how long before press accounts of Obama aren't even safe for work anymore?

After you shake that image out of your head, move onto this delightfully Freudian passage about a possible Biden slip:

As the rain began to pour harder, Obama noticed his running mate’s stool close to the edge of the slippery stage.

"I'm gonna ask Joe to move that stool up because I don't want to have to choose another vice-president," Obama joked. "I don't want him slipping over, toppling over there."

Yes, no one would want that, would they, Barack? "Nice gaffe-prone vice presidential nominee you got here...Shame if anything should happen to him."

Given that the bailout bill is largely agreed upon as a necessary "crap sandwich" that "sucks," it is worth noting that conservative outrage did succeed in stripping the most egregious pork from the bill— funds in an "affordable housing trust fund" that could have gone to Democrat-allied and often nefarious advocacy groups like ACORN.

All possible proceeds from the sale of these toxic assets will now go toward the national debt, not to affordable housing groups that pressure politicians to pressure banks to offer risky loans to low-income families, so those families can get into mortgages they can't afford. Hmmm, doesn't that sound familiar?

Unhappy with the revocation of another round of gorging at the government teat, ACORN is releasing angry press releases, which is at least one reason to smile:

“Members of Congress worked tirelessly over the weekend to rid Wall Street of its toxic assets, which are responsible for the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. Unfortunately, families who fell victim to Wall Street’s toxic lending practices and now risk losing their homes were largely left out. ACORN members are extremely disappointed that the bailout package does little to assist these homeowners, such as providing them relief through the bankruptcy courts.

Although weak, there is language in the bailout package authorizing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to facilitate more loan modifications. ACORN members plan to hold Secretary Paulson accountable and ensure he uses this authority to make streamlined loan modifications a priority for struggling American families.”

ACORN will undoubtedly mobilize all of the dead people, cartoon characters, pets, historical figures, and illegal immigrants it has registered to vote in order to achieve this goal.

A 110-page bailout bill, negotiated by Congress under the glare of global investors and an election-year spotlight, will come up for a vote in the House Monday. A week into wrestling over how to save the financial sector from a meltdown while simultaneously shielding themselves from the political fallout of an unpopular bill, negotiators settled on plan they claim includes increased oversight, limited CEO pay for participating companies, an insurance option as an alternative to buying toxic assets, and less pork than previously considered versions.

Democrats patted themselves and each other on the backs generously Sunday as they announced the accord in a press conference about as charismatic and crowd-pleasing as open-mic night at the morgue. It's leadership like this that leads a party to nominate the junior senator from Illinois for President.

At least some House Republicans, particularly conservatives, who had been the hold-outs on a deal until Sunday, sounded poised to cast their votes for the bill.

Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) reportedly called the bill a "crap sandwich" twice during a final meeting of House Republicans on the subject, but said he'd vote for it on the floor.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a prominent opponent of the bill made a similar argument in the same meeting:

"It sucks," he said before saying it has to be passed to stave off collapse of the financial system.

Other former opponents said to be backing the new version of the bill are Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Rep. Eric Cantor, (R-Va.) The former negotiated on behalf of the House GOP and the latter was a lead proponent of the insurance option central to the GOP's alternative plan, which was eventually included in the final bill language.

The GOP's press release on the final version of the bill says this about the insurance option included: "Treasury is mandated (Section 102) to establish an insurance program and set risk-based premiums. This will protect taxpayers by requiring the beneficiaries of the insurance program to pay risk-based premiums."

But the bill language seems only to require the establishment of the insurance program, which Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson and participating companies would then have the option to employ or not. Though on the surface it seems a good development that the House GOP's insurance option was included, it's unclear to me why Paulson would choose to use it when he's publicly expressed doubts about its efficacy or why companies would opt into it instead of just getting bought out by Paulson. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm no expert on the insurance plan or the bill language, but that's what I gathered from my read-through.)

Other members expressed less antipathy and more urgency:

“If we don’t pass it, we shouldn’t be in Congress,” snapped Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the lead negotiator for Senate Republicans.

John McCain and Barack Obama are still undecided about whether they'll be back in the Capitol to vote for the bill when it comes to the Senate on Wednesday, but urged the bill's passage by the House. Obama somewhat mischaracterized the conflict as one between Congress and the White House (about a week past that, Barry!), no doubt in an effort to meet his personal goal of fitting either the word "administration" or "Bush" into every single campaign statement of the year:

“The breakthrough between Congress and the administration is the culmination of a sorry period in our history, in which reckless speculation and greed on Wall Street and lax oversight from Washington led to a meltdown of our financial markets,” Obama said. “But regardless of how we got here, a failure to deal with the current crisis would have devastating consequences for our economy, costing millions of Americans their jobs and retirement security.”

On ABC's "This Week," McCain used an economy of words with which his opponent is unfamiliar to express an appropriate combination of disgust and necessity: “This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with.”

Both candidates were on the phone with lead negotiators during the Saturday-night sessions, along with leading economists and market experts such as Warren Buffet, said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)

Bush called the compromise a "very good bill" that does what's necessary to "protect our economy against a system-wide breakdown."

Critics from the left held a meeting of the "Skeptics' Caucus" today, during which Rep. Dennis Kucinich claimed there were not enough votes for the bill to pass, and expressed uncharacteristic solidarity with conservative House Republicans:

“There is an attempt to create a fake partisan dichotomy here. This is not about Democrat versus Republican. This is about Main Street or Wall Street,” said Kucinich.

Update: Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) remains staunchly against the bill:

Economic freedom means the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.

The decision to give the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupts this basic truth of our free market economy.

Republicans improved this bill but it remains the largest corporate bailout in American history, forever changes the relationship between government and the financial sector, and passes the cost along to the American people. I cannot support it.

Before you vote, ask yourself why you came here and vote with courage and integrity to those principles.

If you came here because you believe in limited government and the freedom of the American marketplace, vote in accordance with those convictions.

Duty is ours, outcomes belong to God.

Nancy Pelosi announced today at a Democratic press conference long on self-aggrandizement and short on self-awareness, that the deal is done, and the text is online.

Predictably, the government we're counting on to rescue world markets with a plan crafted in one week has not been able to craft a website that can handle such an announcement.

Nonetheless, keep refreshing if you want to eventually see what these guys will be voting on.