Republicans Bail on Bailout Bill

Took credit for the bill before it passed; spent rest of day backpedaling furiously.

The massive Wall Street bailout bill failed, as only 1/3 of House Republicans voted for the bill. Democrats are shocked! shocked! that the Republicans (Lucy) pulled the football away again.

I'm not, but I expect nothing more than the worst from Congressional Republicans.

The stock market promptly fell 777 points, a one-day record. For want of a $700 billion dollar bill, Wall Street investors lost $1.1 trillion dollars. And that's just today. Hold on the reins, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

At least the media seems to realize that it is the Republicans who blew up the bailout bill, and the economy:

Chris Matthews, MSNBC:


Ed Henry, CNN:


John Boehner (Boner) claimed that Republicans couldn't vote for the bailout bill in the end because Nancy Pelosi gave an exceptionally partisan speech just before the vote. Barney Frank was incredulous at this explanation:


John McCain wins the McHypocrite award for this ridiculous statement:

"Now is not the time to fix the blame."
"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanness into the process."

Actually, he blamed first, then said no blame.

No blame. Blame. His head is spinning around like Linda Blair's in The Exorcist.

Anything to get you to ignore McCain's first statement of the day. From Politico:

McCain takes credit for bill before it loses

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his top aides took credit for building a winning bailout coalition – hours before the vote failed and stocks tanked.

Shortly before the vote, McCain had bragged about his involvement and mocked Sen. Barack Obama for staying on the sidelines.

“I've never been afraid of stepping in to solve problems for the American people, and I'm not going to stop now,” McCain told a rally in Columbus, Ohio. “Sen. Obama took a very different approach to the crisis our country faced. At first he didn't want to get involved. Then he was monitoring the situation.”
McCain, grinning, flashed a sarcastic thumbs up.

“That's not leadership. That's watching from the sidelines,” he added to cheers and applause.

He'd say or do anything to win.