Bailing From The Bailout

I guess I'm batting .500. But as usual The Daily Show got it 100% right.

Whereas I've thought from before the beginning that the Iraq invasion was a horrible mistake, I bought into the bailout. When I saw the above bit as it aired, I must admit I was a little shaken; but economists that I've come to respect (admitting my own knowledge rounds off to zero) had generally said -- all with reservations -- that something needed to be done. Now, given the panbushopresidentially precedented mismanagement, it's looking like another bamboozlement (to put the best possible spin on it.)

Given the Paulsonian reversal, the lack of transparency, and the absent oversight, one can only wonder if this was the penultimate pillaging for personal profit as this pathetic president passes the portal. Lowest ever approval ratings in the history of mankind? Oh yeah? Well, take THIS, motherf%&kers!

(Is that too harsh a view? Maybe. But they do seem to be taking that attitude as they scramble to undo as many environmental laws as possible in their final days. It really does seem like George Bush, to the extent that he's engaged at all, is leaving with his middle finger raised.)

Other countries have taken action similar to ours, regarding bailing out their economies. The underlying notion of need may indeed be valid. Maybe it's just that over here, it's being done so erratically, with such a lack of central cohesion, so arrogantly (give us the damn bill and then shut the f@#k up, was the original proposal), that it's neither effective nor trustworthy. One can only wonder how many sub-rosa multimillionaires it's creating.

It's positively invasionokatrinoid. It seems this administration -- "the MBA presidency," we were told; "the adults have arrived" -- is constitutionally (to use a word unknown to them) unable to do anything right: to think a thing through carefully, to consider the big picture, to execute (to use a word that, in their case, negates my point) effectively.

So we, the people, are left holding a fatally full bag, while made to wonder if it was in any way necessary, and, if it was, whether it was either willfully distorted for personal gain, or simply handled so badly that it accomplished nothing but screwing us all, once again.

My impression of Barack Obama and the people around him is that they are very serious and thorough thinkers, committed to solutions and not to politics for its own sake. I hope to hell I'm right; it'll be necessary -- but hardly sufficient -- it they mean to repair the damage left behind.

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