Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Did Democrats blow the bailout on purpose?
Robert S. McCain says "Oh, yeah":
Nancy Pelosi got only 60% of House Democrats to support the plan, and then used her final speech before the vote to lash out at Republicans.
It was as if the whole point of Monday's vote was to embarrass John McCain. The GOP nominee having identified himself so strongly with the bailout, a defeat for the bailout was a defeat for McCain, and the Democrats saw a chance to make him look like an idiot.
UPDATE: The Prowler confirms my hunch:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered her Majority Whip, Jim Clyburn, to essentially not do his job in the runup to the vote on Monday for the negotiated Wall Street bailout plan, according to House Democrat leadership aides.
"Clyburn was not whipping the votes you would have expected him to, in part because he was uncomfortable doing it, in part because we didn't want the push for votes to be successful," says one leadership aide. ...
During the floor vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Democrat Conference chair Rahm Emanuel could be seen monitoring the vote on the floor, and gauging whether or not more Democrat votes were needed. ...
Emanuel, who served as a board member for Freddie Mac, one of the agencies that precipitated the economic crisis the nation now finds itself in, had no misgivings about taking a leadership role in tanking the bill. "He was cheerleading us along, mothering the votes," says the aide. "We wanted enough to put the pressure on the Republicans and Congressman Emanuel was charged with making it close enough. He did a great job."
Democrats are in the majority in the U.S. House. If Nancy Pelosi and her crew had been able to control the Democratic caucus, the bailout bill would've passed. Indeed, if Tom DeLay had suddenly appeared on the House floor yesterday as the Democrat's Whip, is there any doubt that we'd today be talking about how the Dems bested the feisty Republican minority to get the bailout bill sent on to the Senate?
Watching the Democrats blame Republicans for the failure of the bailout bill absolutely sickened me. Watching the mainstream media breathlessly repeat the Democrats' charge sickened me even more. Again, the Democrats are in control of the House. The fact that Nancy Pelosi couldn't control her minions -- particularly her minions who are in tough re-election contests this year -- shows that she may very well be the most incompetent Speaker of the House since the founding of the American Republic. The mainstream media needs to be reporting that fact, indeed.
Nancy Pelosi got only 60% of House Democrats to support the plan, and then used her final speech before the vote to lash out at Republicans.
It was as if the whole point of Monday's vote was to embarrass John McCain. The GOP nominee having identified himself so strongly with the bailout, a defeat for the bailout was a defeat for McCain, and the Democrats saw a chance to make him look like an idiot.
UPDATE: The Prowler confirms my hunch:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered her Majority Whip, Jim Clyburn, to essentially not do his job in the runup to the vote on Monday for the negotiated Wall Street bailout plan, according to House Democrat leadership aides.
"Clyburn was not whipping the votes you would have expected him to, in part because he was uncomfortable doing it, in part because we didn't want the push for votes to be successful," says one leadership aide. ...
During the floor vote, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Democrat Conference chair Rahm Emanuel could be seen monitoring the vote on the floor, and gauging whether or not more Democrat votes were needed. ...
Emanuel, who served as a board member for Freddie Mac, one of the agencies that precipitated the economic crisis the nation now finds itself in, had no misgivings about taking a leadership role in tanking the bill. "He was cheerleading us along, mothering the votes," says the aide. "We wanted enough to put the pressure on the Republicans and Congressman Emanuel was charged with making it close enough. He did a great job."
Democrats are in the majority in the U.S. House. If Nancy Pelosi and her crew had been able to control the Democratic caucus, the bailout bill would've passed. Indeed, if Tom DeLay had suddenly appeared on the House floor yesterday as the Democrat's Whip, is there any doubt that we'd today be talking about how the Dems bested the feisty Republican minority to get the bailout bill sent on to the Senate?
Watching the Democrats blame Republicans for the failure of the bailout bill absolutely sickened me. Watching the mainstream media breathlessly repeat the Democrats' charge sickened me even more. Again, the Democrats are in control of the House. The fact that Nancy Pelosi couldn't control her minions -- particularly her minions who are in tough re-election contests this year -- shows that she may very well be the most incompetent Speaker of the House since the founding of the American Republic. The mainstream media needs to be reporting that fact, indeed.
# posted by Joltin' Django @ Tuesday, September 30, 2008 
