When the bubble bursts Obama says sit on the bench

We are told that we are in or facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression – that it is a “financial Pearl Harbor” We are told that we haven’t seen anything yet. We are told that is if we don’t feel the pain of high gas prices, high food prices, runaway inflation, a struggling dollar, a depressed housing market, 6.1% unemployment, a huge trade deficit, and stagnant wages, then, brace yourself for these things are only the gentle winds that proceed the category 5 hurricane.

Since Katrina - when the government says vacant or you die - most people listen. Well, we are told by the experts that if we don’t act fast, really fast – that’s this week, a financial tsunami will hit.

Some say that McCain suspending his campaign and going to Washington to work on what most call a crisis is a stunt and that McCain is afraid to debate tonight.

I guess it is all about the lens through which you look.

Some see it as McCain putting the Country first - the campaign second. While McCain wants to get in and be involved with the nation’s biggest problem Obama sees his role as watching from the bench.

Obama spouts out a plan quickly but doesn't object to the bailout in principal and in my opinion totally missed the issue of valuing the "purchase" of the bad assets. He said nothing about the Bush plan to purchase this shit for what they see as it "matured value" rather than fire sale value - which it is.

In other words, Obama approves of letting the tax payers pay top dollar for worthless paper and hope that over the years the money is somehow returned. The drunken sailor cannot make out the important details. The main thing to appear that he is doing something and that he is for the people. Well, a plan that pays top dollar for worthless paper so that we can bailout irresponsible corrupt greedy financial companies on the people’s dime is not in the peoples interest.

The Obama campaign is saying – by pushing for the debate no matter what - that the debate tonight is more important than the greatest financial crisis in American history? Obama is playing games with the financial crisis and the debates or he just doesn’t get it. Simply put, the debate could be set off a week. The financial crisis is urgent the debates are not. While the enemy is at the gates Obama wants to debate. McCain at least wants to see for himself what we are up against and at least get in the game.

Obama is all over the place talking, talking, talking about how the crisis should not be made political when he is the one that is making it so with all his talk. Just work on the solution. Leadership is about knowing when to step in and step up. It’s about recognizing priorities.

McCain, is stepping cautiously, stepping in, and acting like a team leader not a sub on the bench.

During the run up to an election they is something eerily disturbing when we hear inaction is not an option. That rational got us into Iraq.

Fear, by the public and by politicians, is once again being used as the tool to manufacture consent for our representatives to rush into the biggest taxpayer bailout of private industry in American history – at least $700 billion and maybe more. The pigs are fat and are at the troth.
No reward for bad behavior.

Although caution may be the crutch of the skeptic, it is also the tool of the realist. One cannot forget the rush to pass the Patriot Act, the rush to establish the Department of Homeland Security, the rush to pass an Energy Bill, the rush to permit warrantless wiretaps, FISA, the rush to eliminate habeas corpus, the rush to bail out Bear Sterns, Fannie May and Freddie Mac, and, now the rush to pass a bill by Friday to bail out AIG by purchasing its bad debt.

It is billed as a “must,” no choice action, a war of last resort, the moment of truth, a do or die watermark for the survival of America. We hear again inaction is not an option. Any caution, if we hesitate, even a week will unleash the monster of doom that will rumble from Wall street to Main street and crush all, like a giant tsunami, leaving only relics of what used to be America.

When it comes to an economic recovery plan for a nation many Americans may feel, as I, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet trying to tell the real from the unreal, the truth from the lie and the benefits from the burdens. We see what we expect and we expect what we believe. Or, we may see what we hope we could see. Let’s remove the rose glasses for a minute. Stop for just a second.

Although caution may be the crutch of the skeptic, it is also the tool of the realist. We are anxious, and maybe a little desperate, but, that doesn’t justify panic and Congress should not be push into enacting legislation that expands executive power in any way.