Inconceivable!

CNBC reports thats the markets are up because they know that Congress will look at yesterday's markets and realize they have to pass the bill.

Umm, why? I know that every bank president with bad paper is telling Washington that the national interest regrettably requires the government purchase those investments at a premium, and that every portfolio manager with a long position repeats the message. But the whole point of our Constitution is that these people don't choose the legislators. Congress "had" to pass the bill yesterday, and didn't, because the electorates don't want to hand Wall Street money for screwing up, and don't want the Democrats settling in as the country's de facto Credit Committee. Fancy that.

Yes, they'll suffer if the economy stagnates while the banking system rebuilds and recapitalizes, but will those losses be larger than the taxes to fund a government recapitalization? And won't the absence of this bailout prevent Wall Street from enriching itself in future with government subsidized leverage? The core of the country's business and earners will slow, but it will be the first to resume credit as things recover. Why should the prudent underwrite the losses of a credit expansion that they need less than anyone? If the best marketers in the country can't sell this thing, doesn't that say something about whether it actually makes sense?

Somehow those hicks have managed to choose legislators who don't identify their interests with the prominent and well-positioned. That was kind of the point of the House of Representatives.

Campaign McCain sends out Jane Swift to declare ""It's clear to me -- as I'm sure it will be to fair-minded Republicans, Democrats and independents across the country -- that Senator Obama owes Governor Palin an apology."" For the lipstick on a pig thing. Candidate Obama replies, "What their campaign has done this morning," Obama said, "is the same game that has made people sick and tired of politics in this country. They seize on an innocent remark, try to take it out of context, throw up an outrageous ad, because they know that it's catnip for the media."

This stuff is beyond tedious. The only thing more boring than politicians is parsing their speech for true meaning.

But I can't help it. Obama's very denials don't help. A gracious and innocent man would say: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that as it sounded. I'm accustomed to using that phrase and didn't consider how it would sound with a woman in the race, and woman with a copyright lipstick line to boot. Wow, what a stupid thing to say. My bad." It costs him nothing -- everyone screws up -- and it makes him look courteous. Either he meant it, which would be stupidly coarse, or he's just a thoughtless prick, which might be worse.

And. I can't help recalling that Senator Obama keeps saying things like "they'll try to make you fear me because I look different", though I haven't heard anyone of any reputation say anything like that. He's got a surrogate circulating the idea that "community organizer" is code for "black". If he can complain about things they haven't even said, why can't they complain about things he has?

But this kind of thing is tedious. I wish the McCain folks had let it go; they're ratifying an endless round of this parsing from the Left, who are past masters at this stuff. People could judge Obama's meaning for themselves. Let him embarrass himself all he likes, and don't worry about broadcasting it.

Links here and here.

As Exciting As A Thoughtful Man Can Be

McCain's domestic platform is the expulsion of the money changers from the temple. He's different in that he's serious. The proposals are a little thin because it's hard to imagine an American government that isn't veined through and through with bestiary of personal, particular and parochial interests. But it's new in that this guy is _serious_ -- witness the shots at his own party -- and temperamentally prepared to go at it. This guy is way more combative than Reagan. The only proposal he enjoyed last night was vetoing appropriations bills.

McCain's contempt for his own party has been constrained by the imperatives of winning. He is truly worried about islamism and convinced that this is a key moment to build a strategy to defeat. He's dutiful and prudent enough to accept that he has to play footsie with his party's bosses so he can acquire a position of leadership, and he'll have the same constraint in office. But he'll go after self-dealing wherever he can. I'm not sure how effectively he can reform Washington, but if nothing else the effort will be instructive.

He hasn't explicitly condemned Bush's exploitation of foreign policy for political advantage, but I think he's too averse to party to follow in that vein. He's sincere in his appreciation of others' honest love of country, and I think he'll naturally find ways to forge a foreign policy consensus that includes at least the conservative wing of the Democratic party.

We would have a better politics after a McCain presidency -- more unified, more transparent -- and we would have a better view of what's really wrong in Washington. We'll have a more balanced and sustainable energy policy, and maybe a lower deficit and some progress toward choices in schools, but I don't see any more specific agenda than that. McCain would mark the country not through policy campaigns but by the reaction of a decent and honest man to the self-dealing of our political bureacracy. Teddy Roosevelt was an American reaction to the perversion by monopolists and capitalists of institutions ostensibly justified by free market principles; McCain is an American reaction to the perversions of institutions ostensibly justified by "equality" and "national security".

He can't give a rousing speech because his appeal is active, not calculated, and because he has to make a devil's bargain with the party bosses to actually achieve power. The risk is that his reform instinct is constantly stifled by that bargain. But the political classes have accumulated so much influence that a reformer can't take office without them -- and I think we're only getting McCain's nomination now because a subset of that class realizes that he's their only ticket back. The GOP establishment will accept some reduction of the political loot by McCain because they realize they aren't getting any loot at all without him, but it's a bitter calculation, and their prone to demoralization if his anti-party rhetoric goes too far.

So this was a dull speech, hemmed in on one side by political calculation and on the other by an honest conservative skepticism. But I think this guy is determined and thoughtful, and I hope people are paying enough attention to respond to what he's offering.