I See My Light Come Shining

They say ev'ry man needs protection,They say ev'ry man must fall. (Dylan, "I Shall Be Released")

The news is fast and furious these days, keeping the stakes high and at least for some the interest level also elevated. However, as with the "bailout," as the media seem to have christened it, there is a risk under these conditions of taking leave of our senses and/or failing to stop and actually consider what is going on.

The federal government certainly seemed to go through some sort of no-time-to-think seizure over the last week. While my powder is still only faintly moist on the merits of the revised bill reportedly hammered out over the weekend, in hindsight I am glad it failed as it may allow for some creative thinking rather than just pastiching of the awful original SecTR ultimatum.

Glenn G has a good long article at Salon on the subject. I am excerpting only briefly, given the number of interesting sources I have tagged for this post. Pursuit of link strongly encouraged:

Retired New York Times reporter David Cay Johnston, writing at The New Republic yesterday, makes a critical point, in a piece entitled "Celebrating the Bailout Bill's Failure":

Whether you favor the $700 billion bailout or not, the House vote today should make you cheer -- loudly.

Why?

Because the majority vote against it shows that Washington is not entirely in the service of the political donor class, by which I mean Wall Street and the corporations who rely on it for their financing. These campaign donors, a narrow slice of America, have lobbied and donated their way into a system that stacks the economic rules in their favor. But faced with as many as 200 telephone calls against the bailout for every one in favor, a lot of House members decided to listen to their constituents today instead of their campaign donors.

Johnston's celebration that "Washington is not entirely in the service of the political donor class" is probably premature given that Congressional leaders are falling all over themselves to assure everyone that this deal will pass in a few days after it is tinkered with in one direction or the other. I recall all too well celebrating a similar "victory" back in March, when House Democrats astonishingly refused to comply with the demands of the "donor class" -- and the entire political establishment -- to pass Bush's FISA bill to grant retroactive amnesty to the entire lawbreaking telecom industry, only to watch them jump into line and do what they were told a few months later. The corporate donor class and political establishment may lose a battle here and there, but they almost never lose the war, since they own and control the political battlefield.

Still, Johnston's overarching point is absolutely right. For better or worse, yesterday's vote was the rarest event in our political culture: ordinary Americans from all across the political spectrum actually exerting influence over how our Government functions, and trumping the concerted, unified efforts of the entire ruling class to ensure that their desires, as usual, would be ignored. Time's Michael Scherer described quite well what a stinging repudiation yesterday's vote was for those who typically run the country without much opposition:

There was a lack of trust, a loss of confidence, a popular revolt.

Nearly every major political leader in America supported the bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote yes.

But the leaders anointed by the U.S. Constitution to most reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that the American people have long felt for their representatives in Washington D.C. Roughly 28 percent of the Americans approve of President Bush. Roughly 18 percent of Americans approve of Congress. These numbers have been like that for years.

Now those bad feelings have manifested themselves in the starkest of terms. Not enough of the American people believed their leaders. And so the politicians that were most exposed ran for cover.

Can anyone even remember the last time this happened, where the nation's corporate interests and their establishment spokespeople were insistently demanding government action but were impeded -- defeated -- by nothing more than popular opinion? Perhaps the failure of George Bush's Social Security schemes in 2005 would be an example, but one is hard-pressed to think of any other meaningful ones.

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Dan Froomkin devoted much of his daily White House Watch column to the increasing irrelevance of the president in matters that count these days, under the title "Put a Fork in Him":

President Bush put what was left of his influence on the line in his push to get Congress to pass a massive financial bailout. So yesterday, when House Republicans killed his proposal, it wasn't just the stock market that took its biggest tumble in history.

Bush is now wiped out.

Dan Eggen and Michael Abramowitz write in The Washington Post: "The vote marked the biggest legislative defeat of Bush's tenure and underscored the vanishing influence of a president who could once bend a pliant Congress to his will on wars, taxes, surveillance and a host of other high-profile initiatives.

"The defeat also brought into focus some of the key characteristics of Bush's troubled second term, including his weakened hold on his party, his tendency to delegate major responsibilities to aides and his continued reliance on alarmist rhetoric in an effort to get his way. Bush left much of the sales job for the rescue plan to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., and his last-minute warnings that 'our entire economy is in danger' appeared to have little impact on the debate. . . .

"Several GOP strategists and lobbyists said the White House deserves considerable criticism for the way it handled legislative advocacy for the Paulson program. Some faulted the president for not personally lobbying lawmakers until the end, leaving it to Paulson, Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten and other aides. The president began calling GOP lawmakers in the House and Senate over the past few days, White House officials said.

"Other Republicans said Bush gave too much leeway to Paulson, whom they consider tone-deaf to politics, in fashioning a plan that initially gave him broad powers with no oversight."

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Richard Wolf, Kathy Kiely, Fredreka Schouten and John Fritze write for USA Today: "When President Bush came on television at 7:35 a.m. Monday to urge passage of a $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, fellow Republicans working out in the House gymnasium jeered his remarks."

Ken Herman writes for the Cox News Service: "The fact that Bush's party rejected the bailout underscored the peculiar position he is in, and decreasing influence he has, during an economic crisis that will dominate his final months in office.

"'No one should be surprised that a presidential appeal couldn't stop this rebellion given Mr. Bush's poll numbers, and given that the idea of defying the lame-duck president was part of the public conversation among House Republicans before the meltdown at the White House meeting last week,' said Bruce Buchanan, a University of Texas government professor.

"For years, Bush, preaching GOP orthodoxy of smaller government and free markets, has pitched homeownership as a part of the American dream. Now, it's become part of a national economic nightmare."

Craig Crawford blogs for CQ: "George W. Bush's White House has gone belly up, not unlike those big banks that failed. The president's political credit was revoked today as his financial bailout failed to pass in the House of Representatives.

"This is what happens to a president who lied to Congress to start a war, among other things -- even if this time he is proposing the best thing for the country."

Justin Webb blogs for the BBC: "With the Republican revolt in the House of Representatives, President Bush is now confirmed as the weakest Commander-in-Chief in modern history.

"He puts Jimmy Carter in the shade. Just as well America faces no serious problems."

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And then there is this from Anonymous Liberal, hypothesizing about republican back-room shenanigans gone wrong (oh, too bad, so sad!):

The more I think about the events of yesterday, the more I'm convinced that a substantial faction of the GOP has essentially written off John McCain and instead has its eyes on a 2010 and 2012 resurgence. How else can you explain the RNC releasing an ad attacking the very bailout bill that John McCain is trying to rally support and take credit for?

Ben Smith reports that the ad was cut and released before the House voted yesterday, at a time when everyone thought that the bill would pass (albeit narrowly). The goal of the House Republicans was not to kill the bill. The plan was to have enough Republicans (mostly retiring Republicans and those in very safe seats) vote for the bill to allow it to pass, but have every other Republican vote against it. Once the bill was safely passed, the RNC and those in the House who voted against the bill could then turn around and stoke public resentment of it.

This strategy--had it worked--may well have helped the GOP in the long term and allowed them to reinvent themselves for 2010 and 2012. It would not, however, have helped John McCain.

But guess who was a big advocate of this plan? Newt Gingrich. Andrea Mitchell reported the following this morning:

I’m told reliably by leading Republicans who are close to him [Gingrich], he was whipping against this up until the last minute when he issued that face-saving statement. Newt Gingrich was telling people in the strongest possible language that this was a terrible deal, not only that it was a terrible deal, that it was a disaster, it was the end of democracy as we know it, it was socialism.

Newt Gingrich isn't just a concerned bystander here. He clearly has presidential aspirations of his own. And the best case scenario for him is that John McCain loses, and he can lead the Republican party back into power in 2012.

Gingrich is clearly a much more influential figure among House Republicans than John McCain is. The movement conservatives in the House have never liked McCain and will not be heartbroken if he loses. They are plotting for the long term right now.

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