The response of the Cheney-Bush administration to the financial crisis follows an 8-year-old pattern. From doing next-to-nothing months ago, they've now rolled out a plan embracing dictatorial power without checks by courts or Congress.
Among those interviewed about the situation by Fareed Zakaria on CNN today was right-wing British historian Niall Ferguson. Something he said was:
It ought to be, as you say, Fareed, a slam dunk for the Democrats. And it ought to be, really, Obama's opportunity to be the Franklin Roosevelt of his generation. But somehow, this doesn't come naturally to him. It doesn't really seem to me to be his strong suit.
And what I think we may end up with is a slightly sort of soft, soft version of the New Deal being offered by Obama, and John McCain having to counter with another kind of Rooseveltian economics -- Teddy Rooseveltian economics -- saying, you know, this isn't going to be solved by increasing the power of the federal bureaucracy. This is about bashing bad guys on Wall Street, and bashing corrupt congressmen.
I think there's two different kinds of populism that can be rolled out at this point, one of which increases the federal government's power, and one of which doesn't necessarily. And I'm not sure it's clear which one American voters will go for yet.
As so often is the case, digby nails it:
[Ferguson] frames this as Obama wanting to "increase federal power" and McCain wanting to battle back the great malefactors of wealth. It's absurd, of course, since its McCain's own party demanding this blank check with no accountability, but I can see how the campaign might try to further that misconception. If McCain decides to break with the white house and fight this plan, that's how I'd see this playing out.
This is what all the politicians are pussyfooting around right now. Both presidential candidates are on the populist field but they are playing different games. They don't yet know how to gauge the public mood. But I think when facing these kinds of major crises, politicians shouldn't try top hard to guess the public mood. These are situations where the public really does look to their leadership to actually lead. We don't need them telling us who we are allowed to sleep with or what music to listen to. But we do want them to call on all the best minds in the world and try to figure out a solution to a serious, complicated crisis.
In fact, our most pressing problem as citizens right now is that the conservative movement has so degraded any belief that Americans have in their government that they literally don't trust anything they say. And the living symbol of their greatest power, the Bush administration, is so lacking in credibility that we'd be fools to do so. It's a bad place for a country to be in a time of crisis.
The first order of business is to stop the Paulson steam roller and catch a breath before they sign over 700 billion more dollars to the Bush administration with no accountability or oversight. There are plenty of people with alphabet soup after their names with other plans, which aren't "giveaways" or "pork", which should be considered. Like Nouriel Roubini, who called this crisis from the first, for instance. Or Dean Baker, (who, I think, presents a very common sense solution for stressed homeowners that avoids moral hazard.) I'm sure there are many more, including some smart bloggers who think about these things.
While all of us have far too much to read on far too many topics, each of the links in digby's excerpted post above deserves attention, as does the Op-Ed by Senator Bernie Sanders. And while you're at it, if you haven't already read devilstower's Three Times is Enemy Action, it's also worth your time.
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The Overnight News Digest is posted and includes the story, Hawaii leprosy settlement faces sainthood dilemma.