There has been an uproar in the blogoshpere about the Bush Bailout Plan.
Maybe partly in response, we've heard some statements of resistance from Pelosi and the Obama campaign.
I think this is, perhaps, triggering a false sense of optimism.
As a test of how the negative reaction is registering more broadly, I decided to see what's happening on the Asian equities markets this morning. As of 9:03 EST, they mostly seem to have opened up between 2% and 10%.
The apparent driver: the widespread belief that not only is the bill a done deal, but it has already been revised to bail out foreign banks, which were excluded from the first draft.
Marshall points out that one of the banks most desperately in need for an invitation in from the cold is UBS, Phil Gramm's old bank, which has a massive campus in Chris Dodd's state.
What a coincidence if the proposal has, in fact, been altered!
And why shouldn't foreign markets believe all the pieces are falling in place? The headlines in the NY Times certainly encourage this interpretation.
Moreover, it looks like the specifics of the new GOP gameplan to turn Democrats into suckers is emerging: they're running a pincers maneuver.
The Bush Administration will pound the table and scream "Something needs to be done! Democrats are stalling!"
Congressional Republicans, behind closed doors, will demand a "clean bill." They will probably hold up a "non-clean" bill in the Senate. (Heard much from Reid yet? Dodd sounded this morning like he was already in the tank.)
All other Republicans will alternate between the "Democrats are stalling!" point and the "Democrats are engineering a huge give-away to Wall Street, and massive expansion of government!" point.
The latter will become the constant chorus once a bill is passed.
If Congressional Democrats do turn out to be as useless as the markets and Republicans expect, I think we're heading for a cliff.
Consider: if we pass a version of a bail-out bill anything like the weekend draft, by election day, it may already be clear that we've pissed away hundreds of billions of dollars without even fixing the problem.
How do you suppose voters might react to that?