Pelosi and Clyburn to Bush: Get on TV and Explain the Crisis

by: Matt Stoller

Wed Sep 24, 2008 at 00:56


Democratic leaders are often useless in a crisis, but occasionally one of them makes a good point.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) has effectively sent the message that if she is going to jump off a cliff to rescue Wall Street, she wants House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and George W. Bush holding her hands when she leaps.

Pelosi made this scenario clear at a lengthy closed-door meeting of House Democrats on Tuesday. Many of those present said they took Pelosi's message to mean that a "majority of the minority" needs to support the bill before she will bring it to the floor.

To get that kind of support, President Bush needs to go on television to speak directly to the public, and get on the phone to rally his fellow Republicans, said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).

"If it's a crisis," Clyburn said in a statement, "and we all need to come together, then as leader of this nation, the president needs to take the lead and bring the country together."

This is a wildly unpopular bill, and Obama's already saying he's going to give up on some of his priorities to pay for it.  And no one has explained why this bill needs to happen and why $700 billion is the magic sum.  A 'hell no' is a really good answer to this lying gang of thieves, including their new GOP Daddy Hank Paulson, the shithead in charge of this scam who asked for unaccountable authority and then pretended he didn't.

But at the very least, if this is the most aggressive economic shift in a generation and a potential financial armageddon, Bush needs to go on TV and convince the public that all our bases should belong to Treasury Secretary Hank.  Otherwise, hell no.

Where's my damned pitchfork?

Matt Stoller :: Pelosi and Clyburn to Bush: Get on TV and Explain the Crisis

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Pelosi and Clyburn to Bush: Get on TV and Explain the Crisis | 39 comments
I'm glad the democratic leadership is wising up... (4.00 / 2)
....The republicans let the cat out of the bag that they were going to pin this crap on us!

I'm still sending my fax warning them of this scam...

There is a real easy way to force the republicans to be on the bus... make sure half the democratic caucus votes no... that way, the republicans have to be on board for anything to pass...

While their corporate overlords were willing to let their congressmen wink and nod to protect themselves, they only were wiling to do that if the bill passed.  Now, they will have to apply real pressure to their republican lackeys to actually pass this bill.

Good for Nancy! She's not as much of a tool as I once thought!  Let's keep it up!

BTW, I heard Hoyer say the same thing earlier today....

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

LA Times (4.00 / 4)
In the 2008 election cycle, the list of the top recipients of donations from the financial services, insurance and real estate sectors (all likely to be affected in varying degrees by the legislation) included the leading presidential candidates.

Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama took in $22.5 million, followed by New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with $21.5 million. Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee, was close behind with $19.6 million.

Money rained down also on the top members of Congress who are steering the legislation. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a candidate for president during the primaries, received $6 million. His counterpart in the House, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), received $720,000 this year.

The No. 2-ranking Democrat on Frank's House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania, collected $755,000, and ranking Republican Spencer Bachus of Alabama took in $704,000.

"If you trace the movement of Wall Street money through Washington, it pretty well tells the story behind this and any other piece of legislation," said Lynn Turner, former chief accountant for the Securities and Exchange Commission. "The way Washington works, it is the lobbyists and the executives who hire them that get what they want. And it is the taxpayer who usually ends up getting fleeced."  Lots more



They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  
[ Parent ]
What happened to our middle class? (0.00 / 0)
Money for Wall Street, not a dime for manufacturing.  

Chrysler will not survive past 2009 no matter what, because Cerberus Capital Management simply bit off more than they could chew. GM and Ford have eighteen months -- tops -- if they don't get things rolling again.
Obama must understand also that as goes the automotive industry, so goes Michigan. How do voters feel about the candidates' auto-related policies? OffTheBus asked Peter M. De Lorenzo, author of The United States of Toyota and founder of Auto Extremist, the Internet magazine devoted to news and analysis of the car biz.

In a word, DeLorenzo described both campaigns as "clueless," but said Obama sounds slightly better today. He also indirectly rips apart George Will's assertion that the Big Three can be allowed to fail without serious economic consequences ... not just for Michigan, but for the whole nation. This, by the way, is a pretty frightening prediction:  Link

Emphasis mine.  They just want a loan they can pay back.  No wonder they're losing their asses.  They think too small.


They're asking for another four years -- in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20. ~~ Dennis Kucinich  

[ Parent ]
im completely against this - one bad handout plan should not beget more. (0.00 / 0)
let these auto companies die. Chrysler is a joke, their product line has been terrible. The unions should have stood up to management but they've cowered instead - senior marketing should have been fired. and GM has blown the biggest lead in the modern age since the Minnesota Vikings blew a 32 point 3rd quarter lead to Buffalo in the AFL playoffs in 1993. neck size 12, collar size 5.

do you really think the government can do better risk assessment on these companies than banks? no. if these auto makers can't refinance on their own then they are desperately in trouble and there is no way tax payers should be exposed to those risks.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

[ Parent ]
too small is not the problem (0.00 / 0)
The problem is, why should we give them any money at all? Stipulate for the moment DeLorenzo's assertion that it will impact our economy in the way he says it will (though if it mattered, I would verify his numbers with an independent source). How does giving them any amount of money help?

In the early 1980's Chrysler recovered and paid back their loans, and the taxpayers made a profit off the deal. But Iacocca plowed Chrysler's newfound profits into unrelated businesses, starving product R&D and setting Chrysler up for failure later.

Nothing fundamental has changed in the past sixty years at the headquarters of the big 2.5. The structural problems go back to the 1950's. Until the boards of directors and executive management of these companies are replaced, they shouldn't get a taxpayer dime.

Assuming that advice is ignored, any money they do get should have severe executive compensation limits attached. Asking for this money is an admission of management and oversight failure. Iaccoca, although not a saint by any stretch, had the good sense to cut his own pay during the bleakest period at Chrysler. Would that any modern executive had a similar sense of shame.

[ Parent ]
Oh, and Chrysler's near bankruptcy in the late 70's wasn't Iacocca's fault (0.00 / 0)
One of his chief talking points during the fight with Congress for loan guarantees was that Chrysler's old management was gone. He was new, and he rebuilt the executive team.

The current cash flow crisis was caused by the current management teams at these companies. They feasted at the SUV trough and failed to invest in building decent small cars. This is similar to what happened during the oil crises of the 70's. Honda was ready with the first Civic at that time.

GM, especially, I have no sympathy for. They blew billions on developing Saturn, investing in FIAT, Saab, Hummer, Subaru. They spent money to kill Oldsmobile (money spent went to dealer and customer payoffs and lawsuits) at a time when Oldsmobile had the most competitive GM sedan in a generation. They could've spent that money developing competitive cars for Chevy or Cadillac. They've run Saab into the ground and lost the plot with Saturn and do we need to discuss Hummer?

[ Parent ]
Senators, why do you seek campaign contributions from Wall Street? (0.00 / 0)
Well, sir, that's where the money is.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."
[ Parent ]
I'm totally 100% opposed (4.00 / 6)
to any bailout until I see real proof, not Colin Powell UN presentation-style bullshit, to confirm that this is necessary.

Right now this feels like a scam. What happens if they pass this and the Dow Jones plummets another 2000 points before the election? They've already spent a trillion, what can Congress do then?

I am glad to see that Dems won't vote for this if McCain doesn't sign on. If McCain and the Republicans are planning to use this as a political issue, the Dems won't pass this thing.

I don't think the Dems should pass this anyway, but if it's a sinking ship then at least make sure all the Republicans are on board.

Well, there is a lot of outside verification... (4.00 / 1)
...Krugman and many other economists say this is a huge mess, so, there is a big difference between this and Iraq.  With Iraq, you couldn't really verify.  With this, the numbers are pretty open, and the market reactions are also pretty telling.  Firms don't go bankrupt just for the heck of it...  Banks don't close just for fun....

This is a crisis in that everything is starting to collapse at once, which feeds more collapses, which just fuels the fire of even more collapses, until you get a great depression...

I don't think that we need to put the kind of money the republicans want into the plan, we just need to stabilize things enough that the draw downs are orderly and progressive instead of everything crashing at once...

In the end, we also better recover all of that money and then some!

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

[ Parent ]
9/11 was real, too (4.00 / 4)
Just because the crisis is real doesn't mean this solution or anything that vaguely looks like it is correct.  Heck, "crisis" could mean anything from a prolong recession to the end of civilization.  I still don't have a great gauge on the severity.
[ Parent ]
Paulson plan will not repay taxpayers (4.00 / 5)
The whole point of the Paulson plan is to buy a piece of Big Shitpile at a premium, then sell it back to Wall Street at a loss.  Keep doing this until they have burned through their $700B (or however much it ends up being).  That $700B is just stake money.  It's like gambling in a casino.  You win some, you lose some, but at the end of the night the casino has your money.  There is no intention with the Paulson plan of returning a red cent to taxpayers.

Someone in Congress should ask Paulson this today:


In 2004, your former firm, Goldman Sachs, along with 4 other brokers, received a waiver of the net capitalization rules, allowing these firms to dramatically exceed the 12-to-1 leverage rules. How much was this waiver responsible for the current situation?

[ Parent ]
And since when do the American People trust Bush? (4.00 / 3)
Seriously, if Bush "went on television to speak directly to the public", would anyone here actually be satisfied by, or trust, a single word he says? Would anyone in America?

It's a highly reasonable demand by Pelosi, but I sort of doubt she actually expects that if Bush tries to follow the demand he will in fact be able to rally America behind this bill. I think Pelosi's point is more to force the current "not even the Republicans are behind this bill, but Pelosi's stuck shepherding it anyway" thing into a "if Bush can't get the Republicans behind the bill, we're certainly not going to do this for him" kind of thing. Or maybe she's secretly working on the assumption that if Bush endorses the bill, it will instantly kill it...

At this moment, Bush is all we have (4.00 / 2)
It may be my problem that he has ruined his credibility with all but 19% of the US populace, but it ain't my fault.

He's the president, the so-called "Leader of the Free World", its his fucking job to get out there and try to provide some kind of sensible explanation for why all this money is needed and needed right now.  If he can't do it, then I want to see him squirm on national TV while he tries to do it.

This ain't the Texas Air National Guard.  The president doesn't get the option of going AWOL. Time to step up George.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
he's very good at invoking fear in Americans (0.00 / 0)
He's demonstrated time & again that he and his minions can scare the pants off of people. And ruling with the politics of fear can help you get away with a whole lot.

He'd have to play his cards right. They're trying very hard to walk the line between scaring people into thinking this must be passed this week, yet not creating a total panic. This is why they're using language like "if the bailout doesn't happen, then banks won't lend to banks, so then banks won't lend to you, so you can't get a mortgage or a car loan, and then the economy goes in the tank because people can't spend."

Note that they are NOT saying things that might make the majority of people fear that FDIC may go down in smoke, that all of their money in banks and investments may disappear. They don't want to encourage people to withdraw their cash & stash it in the Bank of Serta Mattresses.

So, for this to succeed, Bush has to carefully make people very worried about how big corporation failure could trickle down to hurt us... but not scare us into realizing how tenuous the entire "house of cards" is. Bush is actually not bad at selling the correctly nuanced message, when well coached.

His problem is that both Democrats and many Republicans are even more fearful of King Henry Paulson's proposal (and many of the other proposals on the table) than they are of the supposed disaster that will strike on Saturday if George doesn't get his way by Friday. George can't count on his band of loyal supporters to help reinforce his message of impending doom. He can't push stories about "planned terrorist plot stopped" or raise the terror threat level to manipulate the public into going along, either.


[ Parent ]
putting 19 % commander in chief (4.00 / 3)
front and center will accomplish exactly what i want to happen with this exercise, nothing, nada, send the paulie man back to his millions and let america watch as the ws elite eat humble pie like the rest of us have been since the gop mob has been in charge of our nation, how does it taste assholes!
Putting Mr. 19% on TV will humiliate him (0.00 / 0)
and that's fine by me.

Actually, I prefer to see him flail around and try to slouch and smirk his way out of the pickle he brought upon himself, the citizens of the US, and his administration.

I want John McCain to hug him when he's done, too, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
I'm still not even certain if there is a crisis (0.00 / 0)
but I'm also still thinking this just be our time to get some meaningful legislation passed.

If Bush goes on the ol' telly and screams "emergency!" and "we need something NOW!" then that gives good cover for the Dems to point and say "His bailout!"

But passing ownership doesn't mean we can't write the bill we want with all our desired progressive issues now.  Yeah, we may have to cough up a chunck of change for Wall Street, but the Republicans will have to cough up a chunck of change for our agenda as well.

I believe someone earlier said healthcare?

I still don't know where the hell I am on this thing.

Enthusiastic Support for Bailout! (4.00 / 2)
We enthusiastically support the bailout if it is financed by those responsible for making it necessary.  

Namely, it is needs to be funded by a Wealth Tax:

80% tax on all accumulated, intangible assets over 10 million dollars.

No one else pays a dime.

[ Parent ]
It is that simple. (4.00 / 5)
If the president is not willing to convince his own party that such a bill is needed, then it probably isn't.  As Paul Rosenberg and others have pointed out, there are alternatives which either greatly reduce the risk or, better yet, put the burden on corporate bondholders, where it really should be.  The more I learn, the less I believe that Wall Street is temporally tied to Main Street.  Yes, credit will tighten up if these banks fail, but it won't happen overnight and the government will have time to intervene if need be.
look at definition of "troubled assets" (4.00 / 3)
in the Dodd bill (next to last page on pdf on banking committee website)

The definition is so broad that it authorizes the purchase of credit default options related to mortgage backed securities (commercial or residential).

Be clear -- these are not mortgages.

They are NOT simple securities reflecting chunks of a whole group of mortgages.

Instead, they are fake insurance policies backed by no capital and completely unregulated.

I have seen estimates that there are such options with a face value of $73 trillion in liability.  Of course, they could not all go completely belly up, but this is a huge liability based essentially on speculation.

If Dodd bill passes, and permits purchase of this garbage, it would be a terrible crime against society.

The definition needs to be very narrow.

Just plain vanilla mortgage backed securities.

Lender of last resort should prop up good securities harmed by panic and illiquid conditions -- not bail out the fools and thieves.

Also, we need to start thinking about practicalities of bankruptcy proceedings.  Lots of them at the same time.

Its actually worse than you state (4.00 / 3)
TROUBLED ASSETS.The term "troubled assets" means
2. upon the determination of the Secretary, in consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, any other financial instrument, as the Secretary determines necessary to promote financial market stability.

That is to say, troubled assets means whatever the Secretary of the Treasury damn well pleases.

[ Parent ]
Absoultely (4.00 / 4)
Passing this and then letting Republicans run against the "Bush-Pelosi" bailout would be utterly idiotic. If anything is to pass, it must pass with broad Republican support, including McCain's vote. Otherwise, no deal.
It seems that there is more evidence.... (4.00 / 2)
....that our leadership has suddenly grown some brains:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/...

   ABC News' George Stephanopoulos reports: If Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't vote for the Bush administration's $700 billion economic bailout plan, some Republican and Democratic congressional leaders tell ABC News the plan won't pass.

   "If McCain doesn't come out for this, it's over," a Top House Republican tells ABC News.

   A Democratic leadership source says that White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten has been told that Democratic votes will not be there if McCain votes no -- that there is no deal if McCain doesn't go along.



REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
[ Parent ]
It's hard to imagine (4.00 / 2)
a lemming stopping at the edge of the cliff to ask "why are we doing this?"

But there is always hope.

[ Parent ]
Threshold (4.00 / 6)
Right now I'm at the point I'd only favor a plan that is good enough to be passed even if we were not in a crisis.  That's my threshold; the plan has to be solid on its own and not depend on some expected magical results.
Hell No to $700 Billion! Period. (4.00 / 2)
Let's just take the $700 billion figure off the table. It hasn't been explained, nor has the need been proven.

...Adding, the most they get is a modest bridge loan to January -- and only if Bush goes on TV and grovels. And only if a majority of the GOP and nominee McCain vote for it.

"The White House obviously has a loser mentality - but America rallies around winners."

The Politics of This Are Complex, But the Story is About to Change (4.00 / 3)
It's late...clearly, this is going to be a very interesting ride as far as political strategy goes. I am glad to see some strategic thinking going on, but wargaming this out, and winning it, is going to require the best political minds in the business.

Ultimately, I think the bailout will be a major political loser for whoever votes for it...for so many reasons, most of them obvious and already discussed.  

But...I think a whole new chapter in this scandal is going to open up in the next 2-3 days...assuming the trad med picks up the story...presumably, as usual, after the blogosphere breaks the story wide open, then really digs into all aspects of it.  This diary over at DailyKos touched upon the change in narrative today.

The stupid assumption up to this point has been that Credit Default Swaps were too complicated to understand for reporters, bloggers, and the electorate. In fact, they are NOT, and after the next few days, I believe, we will all be quite conversant with them.  And yes, they can be described in "political terms" that are digestible to the electorate.

But it is late...Tonight, all I got are the dots to give you (Hey that's something!).  Tomorrow, I and/or many others will start connecting them all, and then, I assume, a lot of diaries will start cropping up about all this.  Then, the trad med will pick it up.

At which point...it looks to me like Paulson, because of his personal role in helping to create this financial crisis while he was with Goldman Sachs, will become a dead man walking. The narrative, I believe, is going to get ugly.

Here are some of the dots. Got any yourself?

This is a great starting point on what credit-default swaps are.  Hint:  they are essentially totally unregulated insurance policies. Is that so hard to explain politically?

This and this should also be read.

Here, Gretchen Morgenson of the NYT mentions how this latest bailout program actually connects back to AIG and credit default swaps.  Do the taxpayers really want to buy these stupid insurance policies from AIG so they can pay Goldman Sachs?

Interestingly, Buffet, who McCain recently suggested should oversee this bailout along with Bloomberg and Romney (what?), warned a long time ago against what Goldman Sachs and others were doing with credit default swaps. Yet, he is suddenly investing billions in Goldman Sachs. Why?

Another article on this, warning of this impending crisis back in February.

Here is what the FUTURE will look like with respect to credit-default swaps. But how about the trillions tied up in presently issued credit default swaps?  Unless these are dealt with squarely and explicitly (extinguished?), the $700 Billion bailout will not work.

And somewhat buried in here and here you will find the first and second of what will likely be a number of smoking guns pointing to the heinous involvement of Paulson and Goldman Sachs in contributing to this crisis. How will this play "politically" you suppose?

You might want to also check out this,  this and this.

Start connecting the dots.  It is time to dig, get to the bottom of what is really going on here, and start blogging about it...Gotta go to sleep.

No time to be coy (0.00 / 0)
When you posted your links, there were 60 hours until this legislation passed.

When you come back to connect the dots, there will be 48 hours until this legislation passes.

[ Parent ]
I agree completely. (0.00 / 0)
Demo37, it's late, now early.  Now is not the time to be subtle.

What I think you're getting at (what I think is happening) is that the same people who engineered the sub-prime crisis also bought up all the CDS's? But I don't have time to read all your links.

So - is this like Enron screwing California, but on a whole larger scale?  

War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength; McCain/Palin 2008

[ Parent ]
Working On It (0.00 / 0)
Morning...got a little bit of time here...then gotta do some work...then back to this.

Sorry to leave you hanging, but this investigation is going to take a lot of work by a lot of us, and I thought it was important to get the information out so all of us could start digging.

Yes cheesehead, the analogy to Enron is most accurate, and that frame will soon be spreading in the trad med.  

In this case, Goldman Sachs and their leader Paulson (along with a number of others who will soon be named around the world), fraudulently created mortage backed securities that they substantially knew were going to fail. They sold these soon to fail securities to unwitting customers (likely, in a number of cases, foreign banks around the world) then immediately took out massive insurance policies (think AIG and others) that would pay Goldman Sachs and Paulson, when the instruments they fraudulently sold failed.

And fail they did...causing in large part the financial crisis we are in.  And now, Paulson and Goldman want the taxpayers to bail them out.

What is going to happen is that all those unwitting customers are going to sue Goldman.  In fact, virtually anyone who lost anything in this crisis is going to bring a cause of action against Goldman and Paulson.  Goldman and Paulson's liability is going to be in the trillions.  Bottom line is that neither Paulson nor Goldman are going to survive this.  There is not enough money in the US treasury to cover their potential liability.  Like Enron, they are going to go bankrupt.  I know that it is dangerous to bet against the billions of Buffet, but I think Buffet is going to lose his shirt in his effort to prop up Goldman. Goldman is a goner.

And, IF there is the prosecutorial will, Paulson, and much of the leadership of Goldman and Wall Street, will end up in jail.

But all of this is just one dimension of the story that is going to develop.  Very soon, the trad med and Congress are going to realize that the crux of this crisis is all about credit default swaps, NOT other shiny objects.  

When that happens, it will shift the terms of the debate.  And you might as well start studying up on them with the links I provided.  Gotta run to an appointment.


[ Parent ]
Simple question: (0.00 / 0)
Is congress going to pass the Paulson Proposal?  Or are they actually going to pass a responsible bill?

It seemed over the weekend that Democrats might actually go for Dodd's plan or something that will actually benefit taxpayers.  But with these hearings yesterday, the subtext in the news is that Dems are seriously considering just rolling over for the Disaster Twins.  

So, does anyone have a good handle on what congressional Dems are actually doing or what their plan is?

check out Marcy Kaptur on the bailout (4.00 / 1)
what is Kaptur's bill number? (0.00 / 0)
maybe Open Left should get the audience to see which members support Kaptur's approach.
[ Parent ]
Here's Your Pitchfork (0.00 / 0)
I'm glad you asked for one b/c none of the good stuff that seems to be percolating in Congress is going to get done unless there is pressure from the ground to force them to do it. Please encourage people to sign up to lead a public action against the bailout.  They can sign up at this site set up by True Majority, USAction and UFPJ.  People should also contact all of their members of Congress via the Capitol Hill switchboard: 202.224.2131.

Full disclosure: I proudly work for Penn Action, which is the Pennsylvania partner of USAction.

NO Tax Dollars Necessary, Make the Bank Refinance Themselves (4.00 / 2)
http://openleft.com/showQuickH...
We need to kill the notion that a tax payer bailout is necessary. If they want to stick with "there is a crisis" - fine. But the Banks have more than enough value to bail themselves out, if they need bailing out. Cram down a restructuring plan on the bond holders.

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare
these people sold bad mortgages (4.00 / 1)
They made money betting against the bad mortgages.

And now they want the taxpayers to buy up the bad mortgages b/c the consequences of not buying the bad paper will be worse.

And these Masters of the Universe are opposed to new regulation being part of the bailout. They are opposed to reduced executive compensation. And criminal prosecution isn't even on the table.

I want to see the people who caused the problem suffer before I'm asked to pony-up any money for people wealthier than me.

[ Parent ]
Pls Send to Family & Friends (0.00 / 0)
Please send this to your friends and family!

RFK, Jr.: "Let me tell you about one other of these scams people should know about. If you're a newly registered voter - and of course the Democrats have done these gigantic registration drives - 12 million people on registration - if you're a new voter you MUST include your license or some other state I.D. when you come to vote. What that means is that if you're a college kid (and college kids now - they're sending in absentee ballots - they're not going to the voting place, they do everything online or they do everything remotely - they don't dream of going to the precinct house voting on election day and waiting in a long line) so if they send in the absentee ballot and they don't include a color copy of their license their vote is going to be thrown into a trash can. And none of these people know this because you have had to read the law in order to know it. So there is no notification for when you fill out your registration form, so all of those 12 million people that the Democrats have registered: those ballots are going to be just thrown out.

http://www.truthout.org/articl...

Bush needs to be on TV and he needs to say (4.00 / 2)
He's willing to raise taxes to pay for this.

And he's got to acknowledge his administration has misled the country and lied in the past.

When Bush says he's for raising taxes and admits he's been less than truthful when he's claimed "crisis" before then I'll know he really believes this is a crisis.

Until then I'm operating under the assumption that this is partially, substantially or completely a scam.

Truthfully, I think he needs to be tarred and feathered (4.00 / 1)
on TV.

But, your suggestion is probably all I can realistically hope to see.

"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

[ Parent ]
Pelosi and Clyburn to Bush: Get on TV and Explain the Crisis | 39 comments





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