I will air an interview with the governor at the top of the first hour and repeat it in the third hour.

09-30Hugh-Palin.mp3

HH: Governor Sarah Palin, welcome to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Great to have you. 

SP: Hey, thank you so much. Nice to hear your voice. 

HH: Governor, your candidacy has ignited extreme hostility, even some hatred on the left and in some parts of the media. Are you surprised? And what do you attribute this reaction to? 

SP: Oh, I think they’re just not used to someone coming in from the outside saying you know what? It’s time that normal Joe six-pack American is finally represented in the position of vice presidency, and I think that that’s kind of taken some people off guard, and they’re out of sorts, and they’re ticked off about it, but it’s motivation for John McCain and I to work that much harder to make sure that our ticket is victorious, and we put government back on the side of the people of Joe six-pack like me, and we start doing those things that are expected of our government, and we get rid of corruption, and we commit to the reform that is not only desired, but is deserved by Americans. 

HH: Now Governor, the Gibson and the Couric interview struck many as sort of pop quizzes designed to embarrass you as opposed to interviews. Do you share that opinion? 

SP: Well, I have a degree in journalism also, so it surprises me that so much has changed since I received my education in journalistic ethics all those years ago. But I’m not going to pick a fight with those who buy ink by the barrelful. I’m going to take those shots and those pop quizzes and just say that’s okay, those are good testing grounds. And they can continue on in that mode. That’s good. That makes somebody work even harder. It makes somebody be even clearer and more articulate in their positions. So really I don’t fight it. I invite it. 

HH: Have you followed the attacks on you, say, via Drudge or the blogs? Some of them are just made up and out of left field, others are just mocking. Do you follow those? 

SP: No, I sure don’t, and thank God I don’t have time to follow those. You know, I think that those shots, too, though, no matter what we’re taking and receiving, it’s nothing compared to what real shots are against Americans in this world. Americans today who are worried about losing their home and figuring out how in the world they’re going to pay their fuel bill next month, and send their kid to college, and may be worried about losing a loved one that they’re sending off to a war zone to protect our rights. Those are the shots that Americans are taking, so all this political nonsense and the lies, the rhetoric that is spun out there about someone just trying to offer themselves up in the name of service to this great country, I’ll take it. 

HH: Governor, you mentioned the people who are struggling right now. Have you and your husband, Todd, ever faced tough economic times where you had to sit around a kitchen table and make tough choices? 

SP: Oh my goodness, yes, Hugh. I know what Americans are going through. Todd and I, heck, we’re going through that right now even as we speak, which may put me again kind of on the outs of those Washington elite who don’t like the idea of just an everyday working class American running for such an office. But yeah, there’s been a lot of times that Todd and I have had to figure out how we were going to pay for health insurance. We’ve gone through periods of our life here with paying out of pocket for health coverage until Todd and I both landed a couple of good union jobs. Early on in our marriage, we didn’t have health insurance, and we had to either make the choice of paying out of pocket for catastrophic coverage or just crossing our fingers, hoping that nobody would get hurt, nobody would get sick. So I know what Americans are going through there. And you know, even today, Todd and I are looking at what’s going on in the stock market, the relatively low number of investments that we have, looking at the hit that we’re taking, probably $20,000 dollars last week in his 401K plan that was hit. I’m thinking geez, the rest of America, they’re facing the exact same thing that we are. We understand what the problems are. It’s why I have all the faith in the world that John McCain is the right top of any ticket at this point to get us through these challenges. It’s a good balanced ticket where he’s got the experience, and he’s got the bipartisan approach that it’s going to take to get us through these challenges. And I have the acknowledgement and the experience of going through what America is going through. 

HH: Governor, when you say things are tight right now, is that simply because of Todd being off not working? Or is it because of extraordinary demands on the fiscal resources of the Palin family? What’s the situation there? 

SP: No, it’s just the great financial crisis that America is in as our savings accounts also, and a 401K, they’re being hit. 

HH: Sure. 

SP: Our stocks, you know, they took a hit yesterday. And then of course, just the same thing that other Americans are asking themselves today. We’ve got three teenagers. How are we going to pay for their college education? How are we going to make sure that we’re investing wisely today. We’re putting a lot of faith in other people who are using our money as investments. We have to count on the federal government to be overseeing these agencies and entities, making sure that we’re not going to get screwed on this deal, and that our savings are safe. So there again, John McCain’s got some great ideas on granting authority, for instance, to the FDIC, making sure that our deposits are insured. He wants to increase that deposit insurance cap of all of our money, our savings, from $100,000 dollars up to $250,000 dollars, so that families like mine, so that we don’t have to worry about our money being safe or not under FDIC.  

HH: Governor, let’s turn to a couple of issues that the MSM’s not going to pick up. You’re pro-life, and how much of the virulent opposition to you on the left do you attribute to your pro-life position, and maybe even to the birth of, your decision, your and Todd’s decision to have Trig? 

SP: Yeah, you know, I think that that’s been probably the most hurtful and nonsensical slap that we’ve been taking is our position that we have taken, pro-life, me personally, and saying that you know, even though I knew that 13 weeks along that Trig would be born with Down Syndrome, and I said you know, he’s still going to be a most precious ingredient in this sometimes messed-up world that we live in. I know that my son is going to provide a lot of hope and a lot of promise in this world, and I’m so thankful of course that I’ve had the opportunity to give him life and to bring him into this world. But I think yeah truly, that that’s been a hurtful slap that we have taken, because people just don’t understand. Ironic too, Hugh, that some would consider my position on life and trying to usher in a culture of life, respecting the sanctity of life in America, that that is seen as an extreme position when to me, an extreme position is one that Barack Obama took when he was in the Illinois State Senate, not even supporting a measure that would ban partial birth abortion, not even supporting a measure that would during, after a botched abortion and that baby’s born alive, allowing medical care to cease and allowing that baby to die. That to me is extreme. That’s so far, far left it’s certainly out of the mainstream of America. To me, that is the extreme position, not my position of just wanting that culture of life to be respected, and not wanting government to sanction the idea of ending life. 

HH: Do you think the mainstream media and the left understands your religious faith, Governor Palin? 

SP: I think that there’s a lot of mocking of my personal faith, and my personal faith is very, very simple. I don’t belong to any church. I do have a strong belief in God, and I believe that I’m a heck of a lot better off putting my life in God’s hands, and saying hey, you know, guide me. What else do we have but guidance that we would seek from a Creator? That’s about as simple as it gets with my faith, and I think that there is a lot of mocking of that. And you know, so bet it, though I do have respect for those who have differing views than I do on faith, on religion. I’m not going to mock them, and I would hope that they would kind of I guess give me the same courtesy through this of not mocking a person’s faith, but maybe perhaps even trying to understand a little bit of it. 

HH: Governor, let’s close with some foreign affairs. It is reported that you had an Israeli flag in your governor’s office. You wore an Israeli flag pin occasionally. One, is that true? And two, why your support for Israel? 

SP: Well, it is true, and I ran into Shimon Peres recently at a meeting, and he even pointed that out. He said I saw a picture of you on the internet, and you had an Israeli flag in your state government office, and I said I sure do. You know, my heart is with you. And all of those trials and tribulations throughout history that Israel has gone through, not only does that allow me to want to support that country, but Israel is our strongest and most important ally in the Middle East. And they are a democratic country who I believe deserves our support, and I know that John McCain believes as I do that Israel is our friend, and we need to be there to support them. They are there for us, and I do love that country. 

HH: Last question, Governor. Have you and Todd heard from your son? And how is it on your nerves having your son deployed? 

SP: That little stinker, I guess he’s called his girlfriend a couple of times, but can you believe he hasn’t called his momma yet? He’s over there. They were just leaving Kuwait heading into Iraq, and I am just so extremely proud of Track, my son, and all of the men and women, of course, serving in the military. I’m proud that my son made this independent and very wise decision as such a young man at 18, deciding you know, he realized there’s something he can do to help, to contribute, to help protect our nation, and I couldn’t be more proud of him and all those who choose to serve in our military. They’re serving for the right reasons. God bless them, God love them. 

HH: Governor Sarah Palin, look forward to talking to you again, good luck on Thursday night. 

SP: Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. 

End of interview.

As the Destructocrats moved to burn down the financial house yesterday, Barack Obama did nothing.  Geraghty has the details.  (HT: RobinsonandLong.com.)

Voting and same-day registration began today in Ohio.  Dems are mobilizing the homeless vote according to this AP story.  Every McCain supporter in the Buckeye State ought to turn out now rather than wait until Election Day. Doing so now decreases the load for the GOTV effort on 11/4.

UPDATE: "Palin's Moment" by Mark Goldblatt is very very good.

Why did Nancy Pelosi sink the rescue package and Barack Obama and Harry Reid allow her to do so?

The harshest voices in the leftosphere were certainly screaming at her.  Kos posted "Pelosi thinks we're stupid" yesterday morning which ranted at the Speaker, and Michael Moore thundered away at "biggest robbery in the history of this country."

Pelosi buckled, and with her went a trillion dollars in long accumulated wealth, nursed over decades into retirement accounts.  Where was Obama?  "Just trying to stay out of the battle," Rudy Giulianai told me yesterday about the Democratic nominee.  "You know, 'Let me keep my skirts clean.'"

The carnage from the Destructocrats' inability to lead past their hard left base paralyzed the country yesterday and is a glimpse of the future if Obama hangs on to his narrow lead, and the hard left trio of Obama-Pelosi-Reid are running the country.  That really means Ayers-Kos-Moore will be running the country, rising up in a vast snarl every time their kept politicians depart from their line.  Axelord thinks he is riding that beast, but yesterday showed who is in control.

Obama's minions are out chanting blame at the Republicans, but the Speaker runs the House and in this instance she ran it over the cliff and with it the dreams of millions of Americans, and the crisis isn't over.  Far from it in fact.  The damage done to the people who sold into a panic will not be reversible, and shattering blows taken to the employment of who knows how many won't even surface for months.  Markets will now start factoring in the likelihood of an Obama presidency and the massive tax hikes and the soaring oil prices that will certainly follow. 

The election is of course far from over, and Rudy may in fact have been the first one to sense another change in the wind:

HH: What’s your sense of this race and of the next five weeks? 

RG: My sense, and I don’t believe…I believe there has been a change right now at this particular point we’re at. I don’t think it’s about Sarah Palin. I think that she’s still giving us help by making the Republican base very enthusiastic, and actually reaching over to a group of voters who might not be thinking about us. I think it’s the economy that’s creating it. The general wisdom is if there’s trouble in the economy, it’s going to favor the Democrat. I think that’s what you’re seeing. But I believe if the public perceives a crisis in the economy, I think it’s going to start favoring John McCain, because I think it’ll be the same reason why they favor him as the more capable being commander in chief. And right now, we need a leader. We need someone who can make tough decisions, somebody who can wade in and get things done. John McCain last week acted like a president, trying to get votes. All this weekend, he’s acted like a president, trying to get votes. Barack Obama is just trying to stay out of the battle, you know, let me keep my skirts clean, and I want to politically position myself. That isn’t the kind of leader we need at a time the country’s at crisis.  

As Pelosi and the hard left engineered a huge smash up --95 Democrats voted against the bill!--  Obama ran for the tall grass.  In the immediate aftermath of the smash-up, a stunned crowd of victims and observers wandered around the wreckage wondering what happened.  But the effects of the collision will be shaken off and heads will clear and people will see the first and hopefully the only example they need of the new Democratic Party leadership working together.

Yesterday the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Destructocrats delivered the chaos that their hard-core activists demanded.  The prospect of four years of that should make even left-of-center Democrats shudder.

UPDATE: An e-mail sent from a very successful businessman I know, David Parker, to every House member who voted "no" yesterday:

Dear Honorable Member of the House:

Having observed the failure of the House of Representatives to pass the proposed Financial Institutions Rescue Bill today, I wanted to express my serious concern and displeasure.  The effective price that the American people paid today for your individual “NO” vote on the Rescue Bill (which monies are now lost to all who sold in today’s market) was $4,824,561,403.51 ($4.8 billion), if you calculate that the American taxpayers lost $1.1 trillion in today’s market decline on 228 votes, or nearly $92 billion for each of the 12 votes that failed to pass the measure.  Today’s market decline is not retrievable to those who sold into it, in a panic because of your failure to act in the best interests of the American and global economies.  I completely agree that Speaker Pelosi failed to lead and bring a consensus to the vote in her hyper partisan introduction – she showed anything but leadership on the point. Even so, and in spite of such an offense, the American people deserved better from their elected officials who are called to SERVE. 

Tuesday’s market will also be a costly experience for the American people as well. How long must we wait?  Unlike the proposed Rescue Plan where the Treasury would have received a reasoned return on its investment (like unto Chrysler and the S&L Rescue Package), the American people lost today and will tomorrow and each day thereafter until confidence is restored to our markets.  Many of you call this socialized economics, when in fact it is anything but.  Wait until the markets completely dissemble and the Democratic majority in Congress takes hold of corrective actions – that will render us on the slippery slope of socialism.

As a lifelong conservative Republican, and one who has been actively involved in the financial markets, I am completely dismayed by the lack of financial capacity, integrity and character in your vote.  I truly believe that you voted out of fear of the ballot box, and disbelief in the realities of the market. Are you that much smarter and more capable than some of the finest economic minds who are leading our markets, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke? What must be said or done to illustrate the severity of your actions today?  The PRIDE of both Republicans and Democrats, evidenced in pointing fingers, taking credit, trying to preserve elected positions, etc. is compromising every American. The lack of confidence in the global economies is costly, far more than the invested dollars of the proposed Rescue Plan.  It is manifest in 401k’s, pension funds, savings accounts, employment, housing, food, energy and every other element of society.  Your failed actions today will cost us eventually, both in market losses and in an ultimate rescue plan that will bear an even greater cost.

As a homeowner in numerous states, the father of 6 in 6 states with 14 grandchildren that each are affected by your failings, please, consider the seriousness of the situation and resolve this, NOW!!

Regards,

David

Instapundit posts an e-mail:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: "Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working." I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

Read the whole thing.

I doubt this will be decisive in the election because MSM's bias is so well known and their output so deeply discounted as a result.  Obama's weakness as a candidate, though, is underscored by his inability to break away from McCain even with a thousand MSMers pushing him up the hill.

Nancy Pelosi has been receiving most of the blame in yesterday's meltdown in Congress, and rightly so.  Her disastrous day, which led to the meltdown that began on Wall Street Monday, has now spread to the Asian markets overnight.  She certainly went above and beyond the call of duty in helping sabotage her own bill Monday by giving a free pass to any Democrat who wanted out.  No pressure from the Speaker was exerted to pass the legislation in her caucus, again Democratic-sponsored legislation, at all. 

But she needed an ally to enable her, someone with the distinct leadership style that consists of paying just enough lip service to the issue to score with the media and hoping it reflects in poll results, but actually shrinking from view when given the opportunity to show just how convincing he needs to be in times of crisis.

From the Tuesday editions of the New York Times:

Democrats had said all along that by inserting himself into negotiations, Mr. McCain had brought presidential politics to a delicate situation and could wind up hurting more than helping. After the House vote, his aides bristled at the suggestion that his involvement had in fact been a drawback, saying he had been instrumental in getting House Republicans a seat at the negotiating table and helping bring in more of their votes.

[Senior McCain advisor, Douglas] Holtz-Eakin said Mr. McCain had made “dozens of calls” on the bill, some to House Republicans who opposed it.

Aides to Mr. Obama said he had not directly reached out to try to sway any House Democrats who opposed the measure. But where Mr. McCain had accused Mr. Obama of taking a hands-off approach to the financial crisis, Democratic advisers said they believed that Mr. McCain now had a role in the legislation’s failure.

Before the suspension of the McCain campaign last week, there were four Republicans on record supporting the language in the bill as it was.  Senator McCain went back to Washington, got the House Republicans a seat at the negotiating table over the weekend, and their input in the bill for Monday's vote got sixty more Republicans to commit, far more than Pelosi should have needed to get the bill passed.

Senator Obama, on the other hand, showed up to the White House only when invited, spoke in platitudes, left, got beat in the debate Friday night, spent the weekend speaking in more platitudes, and did not lift a finger to dial the phone of any of his Democratic colleagues in the House to try and persuade them to consider supporting a bill Obama was half-heartedly on board with for the good of the country.

Rudy Giuliani, a man who knows a thing or two about what it takes to be a good executive, said this on Hugh's show Monday night:

Barack Obama has done what he’s done throughout his entire career, which is vote present, not offer any leadership. We don’t even know what part of the plan he supports or doesn’t support. John McCain delivered sixty Republican votes. When he went to Washington last week, only four Republicans in the House were in favor of this. They ended up with 64. There were enough Republican votes for the Democrats to get this done, but a third of the Democrats abandoned Nancy Pelosi. I have a feeling that if Barack Obama were at the table rolling up his sleeves, taking the same risk that John McCain took, they could have gotten that other twenty or thirty Democratic votes. It might have helped get a few more Republican votes if they saw that kind of commitment on the Democratic side.  

HH: Should Obama be out there right now demanding that this pass on Thursday, Mayor? 

RG: Of course. He should be working the phones. That’s what a president…this is what our great presidents do. They work the phones. It just doesn’t all happen because you make a speech and say change. It just doesn’t happen because you have a catch phrase or you happen to be able to have sort of a rock star effect on people. Politicians don’t care about rock star effects on people. They care about are you negotiating with me, what you are going to do for me, how are you going to get it done. I passed a lot of legislation as Mayor of New York City. It didn’t happen because I’m a rock star. It happened because I could negotiate with people, and I could work with them to get it done. John McCain can do that. Remember, when he went to Washington, with all the Democrats attacking him, he took the Republicans from four to 64. When Barack Obama went to Washington, it looks like the Democrats disappeared.  

The more you see this campaign unfold, the more you see Barack Obama's true vision of hope and change.  He only seems to act, or more frequently not act, when he hopes it will positively change his standing in the polls.  The problem is, we've seen this political strategy before.  It was called the Clinton administration.  

The media may want us to believe Barack Obama is The One, but his inaction, his hand washing of the financial mess and hiding behind the "Let Congress figure it out" rhetoric, makes him resemble someone a little more Roman governorish.  

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

I thought it was bad enough that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had made a deliberate decision not to make today's vote on the Democrat's economic stabilization bill a "party loyalty" vote in which the House Democratic leadership made absolutely clear that it expected loyal Democrats to vote in favor of the bill. Ignoring all of the immense power to persuade that inheres in the position of Speaker of the House, Speaker Pelosi wouldn't even offer (or threaten to withhold) so much as a choice Capitol parking spot to make up the 12-vote margin between victory and defeat of H.R. 3997, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

Speaking on John Gibson's radio show later in the day, however, Karl Rove ran through, by name and often by committee or subcommittee chairmanship, the many, many Democratic members of the House whom Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership expressly authorized to vote against the economic stabilization bill. Glenn Reynolds boils this down to a succinct sentence which is almost exactly right: Pelosi gave key Democrats a pass on the bailout vote. The only quibble I have is that she didn't just give key Democrats a pass. She gave them all a blanket pass, and then some members particular and specific encouragement to take it. It is inconceivable that she didn't know exactly what the result would be.

— Beldar

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the number two House Democrat in authority (behind only Speaker Nancy Pelosi), in defending his party from responsibility for the defeat of the financial stability bill today, delivered the all-time lamest excuse I've ever heard (my transcription from video on the PBS NewsHour; boldface mine):

"No Democrat that we could get to vote for the bill didn't vote for the bill."

Behind that tortured double-negative is a tautology. This is empty double-talk — delivered by the dishonest, intended for the gullible.

Here's a short civics lesson, one that any defender of the Democratic Party badly needs for you to forget today:

An indispensable part of the genius of the American two-party political system is that it provides each party's leadership with a whole range of tools to enforce party discipline. There are committee assignments. There are office locations. There are discretionary decisions on staffing and funding of staffs. There is a panoply of carrots and sticks that party leaders from both parties can and do use to influence their members' votes. There are even party officials — "whips" — whose entire position is to facilitate the application of those carrots and sticks. And this isn't even vote-trading on issues, much less any sort of overt corruption. It's just the day-in, day-out working of Congress, and such has been the grease that has permitted the great wheels of legislation to turn since the birth of the Republic. Indeed, you can find parallels to it in the Roman Republic two millennia ago.

Past masters of the practice include such legislative legends as Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX) in the House and Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson (D-TX) in the Senate, but these tools are quite effective even in the hands of such modern-day legislators as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid — if, but of course only if, they choose to take those tools in hand and apply them.

Ninety-five Democrats bucked their party leadership today precisely because Nancy Pelosi made it cost-free for them to do so. By refusing to make this a "party loyalty vote" — and thereby giving a clear signal to every Democratic member of the House that there would be neither carrots nor sticks applied by the House leadership — Speaker Pelosi ensured that even the mere dozen additional Democratic votes needed for passage wouldn't be there.

The indisputable fact is that the Democratic leadership of the House consciously declined to use the tools available to them that would have ensured the passage of this bill. Period, end of paragraph, and end of the story for today. This is a matter of simple arithmetic and standard party practices. It is not a matter that can even be seriously debated. It is only a matter that Democrats like Majority Leader Hoyer can attempt to conceal, as he does in the statement quoted above, by misleading the public about how hard the Democratic leadership actually tried.

------------------

UPDATE (Mon Sep 29 @ 7:50 p.m. CST): Another thing about which there can be no disagreement is that what was defeated today was a Democratic bill. H.R. 3997 has had a complicated procedural history that was controlled at every step of the way by Congressional Democrats.

Specifically, H.R. 3997 was originally introduced by Rep. Charles D. Rangel (D-NY) as an amendment to the tax code "to provide earnings assistance and tax relief to members of the uniformed services, volunteer firefighters, and Peace Corps volunteers." By a pair of affirmative votes earlier today, however, a resolution offered by Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) effectively converted H.R. 3997 into the "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008." It too was drafted by Congressional Dems and their staff, varying substantially from what had originally been proposed by Secretary Paulson and the Bush-43 Administration, and incorporating only such requests and suggestions from the House GOP as the Democratic leadership decided to agree to.

This is the Democratic Congress' bill, but when it came to a roll-call vote in the House, the Democratic leadership wouldn't do what it took to get it passed even though (a) they have a huge majority and (b) a full one-third of Republicans in the House went along. Anyone who calls this "Bush's bill" or "a GOP bill" is either deliberately lying or abysmally informed about the basic workings of Congress.

— Beldar

The GOP House leadership is now bluntly declaring what everyone who followed the story today knows:  Nancy Pelosi killed the bailout bill with a blistering attack on Republicans just prior to the start of the vote.  The Speaker cost millions of Americans hundreds of millions in retirement savings today because she could not resist using her position to slam her political opponents even after they had met her more than half way. 

UPDATE: A representative e-mail:

Some blog comments ask if it is wise to blame Pelosi for today's vote failure.  I actually think it is - and could benefit McCain.  Up until this morning, we all assumed the long weekend of work would culminate in an up vote for the plan.  But Pelosi couldn't keep her mouth shut and couldn't control her urge to inject politics prior to the vote.  This calamity on Wall St. was too big to play these games now- and she blew it.  This was a time for all to suck it up and get this bill passed so the economy could begin recovering.  I thought I had never been angrier - having to swallow this bailout thanks to bad govt. policies interjected into the banking business and carried over to Wall St. - until today!!  I'm no policy wonk- no pundit- but I place blame for this failure today squarely on the Dems - and by extension Obama and his crew.

Wall Street didn't collapse today. The House of Representatives did.  And Pelosi is its leader.  She should be fired.  Vote against every Democrat.

UPDATE 2: Why did Pelosi torpedo her own bill?  Here's a clue: The Michael Moore wing of the party wants the collapse of the economy.  This is Pelosi's base and she dared not stand against them.

UPDATE 3:  Dean Barnett assesses the fallout, both economic and political.  He thinks the GOP takes the blame for the meltdown, but I don't think that is the case.  In the old days the president and his party got blamed for such fiascos, but not that's not necessarily the case in a new media environment where all the facts are availabkle to any interested party.  There is a huge anger building against all incumbents, and how it courses is anyone's guess at this moment.

From McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds earlier today:

“When Barack Obama released remarks today that praised the passage of America’s economic rescue plan, just before his allies in Congress voted to kill it, it revealed just how out of touch Barack Obama has been during this crisis.  As our country stares economic disaster directly in the face, Barack Obama has called for higher taxes we can’t afford, more federal spending we can’t afford and shown failed leadership we can’t afford.”

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

My gracious host here, Hugh Hewitt, often reminds us all that elections have consequences. The consequence of the 2006 elections was to put voting control of both chambers of Congress directly in the hands of the Democratic Party, led by Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reid in the Senate. In the House in particular, with its lack of debate rules like those the Senate uses to permit filibustering, when a piece of legislation passes or fails to pass, that result can be — must be, under hallowed principles of democracy — laid at the feet of the majority party.

Well, here's the result on the bill intended to restore order to our financial markets: It was defeated this afternoon in the House by a vote of 228-205. Only 140 Democrats voted for the bill. By contrast, "[a] switch of just 12 members would have reversed the outcome, and 95 Democrats, many the left wing of the party, contributed to the defeat."

Speaker Pelosi took the opportunity today to deliver a highly partisan, provocative, and frankly offensive speech immediately before voting on the bill intended to restore order to our financial markets. She found time to go out of her way to blame Republicans, including GOP members of the House, for the current financial crisis. Was her target audience the public? Perhaps. Could she be certain, though, that she would not decisively offend waivering Republicans who were considering voting for the bill? Of course not. Could she be certain that she would not also encourage members of her own party to vote against it, in a show of their own frenzy to point the finger of blame for the current crisis at the full-time object of their dementia, George W. Bush? Of course not. The occasion called for a speech displaying moderation and statesmanship, but Pelosi served up partisan venom.

What Speaker Pelosi did not, do, however, is even more significant: She did not bother to invoke the mechanisms of legitimate party discipline that have evolved over time by which party leaders can pressure their reluctant members. Per Ben Pershing of the WaPo (boldface mine):

House leaders, meanwhile, did support the bill and did whip it. But this wasn't a party-loyalty vote; lawmakers were asked to vote yes, but they weren't threatened. They (probably) weren't bribed. Add all that up, and you had a power vacuum.

Pelosi gave the members of her own party, in other words, a "pass" to make a political anti-Bush, anti-GOP statement. And make no mistake about this: When permitted by Pelosi to do so without party consequences, the Hard Left Democrats in the House put the opportunity to deliver their own raised middle finger to Dubya and the GOP ahead of the stability of the nation's financial markets.

In fairness, neither, apparently, did House GOP leaders make this a "party-loyalty vote." But once again, precisely because elections have consequences, the bill being considered wasn't the House Republicans' bill. It wasn't any longer what their party's president had submitted, either, and there's no guarantee that it will be their party's Treasury Secretary who will be administering the resulting program after January 2009. What was put to a vote did have some significant revisions that were, indeed, the result of vigorous GOP negotiations to make it more attractive to Republicans and to fiscal conservatives generally. Those revisions, plus lobbying from the GOP presidential nominee John McCain and the Bush-43 Administration, brought fully one-third of the House Republicans to vote for a bill whose particulars and ultimate fate were controlled by the Democratic majority. In a House numerically dominated by Democrats, on a bill nominally supported by Democratic Party leaders (including its presidential candidate), that ought to have been more than enough GOP support.

If you view the bill's defeat as a good thing, which substantial numbers of Republican congressmen and their constituents did believe, in absolute good faith, then there are many to whom you can extend thanks.

If, however, you viewed passage of the bill as a good thing — which I, reluctantly, did — then there's exactly one person who bears responsibility for its defeat. Responsibility falls on Speaker Pelosi not just because of her specific actions in this matter (which were deplorable), but because elections have consequences, and the consequence in 2006 was to give her more than ample institutional power to swing at least another 12 members of her party to produce the opposite outcome on this vote. "With great power comes great responsibility" is such a truism that it can become the motto of a comic book and movie superhero. It's a shame that the Democrat who's Speaker of the House can't grasp the concept.

— Beldar

Yesterday I actually wrote that the Speaker was to be congratulated for working to get a bipartisan solution hammered out.

I actually thought that the enormity of the problem facing the country's and the world's economies had led her and her colleagues to a responsible middle position.  Dozens of Republicans lined up behind their leadership today to vote for a bill that most in the GOP caucus understand to be fixing the consequences of policies conceived and executed by the friends of Bill Clinton and the advisors of Barack Obama when they ran Freddie and Fannie, policies which were protected from review and correction by none other than Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and the like.  I thought the Administration's and John McCain's refusal to launch partisan broadsides combined with the near-uniform advice of financial experts had finally impressed the Dems enough that they would lay down their cudgels long enough to pass the law necessary to the functioning of the credit markets.

I was wrong.  The bill failed in the House by a 228 to 205 vote, with 95 Democrats voting against it, a cynical exercise in manipulating the financial crisis for the Dems perceived political advantage.  They think that blame for the worsening credit market will fix to Republicans and John McCain.  That Pelosi et al stampeded tens of thousands of panicked investors out of the market today at some considerable loss to their hard work over the years means nothing to them.  The jobs they are sacrificing to panic means nothing to them.

The only thing that matters to the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Democrats is power. 

This is the bottom line: Democrats defeated this bill, and cooly walked out to denounce the House Republicans.  Just as the Dems demonstrated during the long debate over off-shore drilling, they do not care a whit about the impact of their Beltway doings provided they think it will bring them more seats and greater power and perhaps the presidency. 

The voters of this country would be insane to turn more power over to this bunch, much less to the irrelevant Obama, standing on the sidelines doing nothing to bring the party he allegedly leads to the responsibilities of governing.   

(Guest Post by Bill Dyer a/k/a Beldar)

Last week's narrative from the Obama campaign was "John McCain can't be trusted because he's impetuous and lacks a presidential temperament." Thus, when McCain recognized the urgency of the credit crisis in the nation's financial markets and returned to Washington to participate in discussions and negotiations for desperately needed legislation to address it, Team Obama had to insist that the Republican Party's presidential nominee, one of its most senior senators, had no business being in Washington to, you know, do his day job. No doubt they also hoped that McCain would, without much provocation, go unstable during the first presidential debate and do something, anything, that they could paint as rash. McCain thoroughly disappointed them.

What to do, then, if your GOP opponent won't be rash on cue? Why, of course, turn to your friends at Newsweek. The Obama campaign's friends there promptly produced a piece called The Vices of Their Virtues, whose theme is summed up by its subhead: "John McCain's impetuosity is either thrilling or disturbing. Barack Obama's cool is either sober or detached. It's clear now how each would govern."

McCain, we're told, has "emerged as Mr. Hot, a candidate who makes no apologies for his often merry mischief-making." Obama, however, is "Mr. Cool, at once impressively intellectual and yet aloof," with a "measured responses to the news of the season and his steady insistence on projecting a cerebral image." And in case that's too subtle for you, in terms of helping you make up your mind how the really smart people at Newsweek think you should vote, they spell it out:

Our view is that if you are among the 18 percent or so of undecided voters (the current figure in most national polls), we think you now have more than enough on which to decide. McCain and Obama see the world differently, and you can see how; they behave in their own skins differently, and you can see how. The drama of the autumn has served perhaps the noblest end we could hope for, shedding light on how each man would govern. McCain is passionate, sometimes impulsive and unpredictable; Obama is precise, occasionally withdrawn and methodical.

To refine that down a bit: McCain=Hand Grenade, Obama=The Sum of All That's Good and Rational.

Oh, but lest you think that even being "occasionally withdrawn" or "aloof" is a bug, the good folks at Newsweek rush to assure you that that's really a feature:
Read More...

Aided by a MSM willing to say whatever it has to say to help Obama make it to 1600, the democratic nominee has not yet been hurt by his very poor performance on Friday night's debate.  Weekend talking heads chanting "ties go to the winner" nonsense and the output of loyalists like E.J. Dionne are trying to make Obama's halting answers on Iraq, Pakistan and especially North Korea seem like C-minuses on a pass-fail test.  The cringe-inducing bracelet moment has surfaced in just a few places, and McCain's dominance on the facts concerning Russia and his memorable "You don't do that" dismissal of Obama's threats towards our ally in Pakistan will get their full play this morning on all the talk shows, and of course Bill Bennett's, Rush's, Dennis', Sean's, Michael's, Mark's and my reach will instantly overshadow all the work done by CNN and the nets to spin this into "a draw that helps the rookie."

Obama doesn't know what he's talking about on the perils we face abroad, and he was led around by the hand on the bailout package.  He is a figurehead for Democratic party elites from the hard left edge of the party.  While the financial panic erased McCain's momentum by taking the real reform message off the front pages, it will be back as markets settle.  The focus on the triggers of the crisis --look to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and the friends of Bill Clinton--  can't be bottled up now that the legislation is in place.  The idea of turning all parts of the government over to the gang that engineered the structure that brought it upon us is so absurd that only the MSM can ignore it, not voters.

Obama's nearly 5 point lead in the RCP combined poll average has many nervous e-mailers sending me "it's over" e-mails, but of course it is just beginning, and the deep uncertainty and fear in the country doesn't help an untested Chicago machine pol much if at all or for long.  (The Battleground dead-heat numbers should encourage the worriers, as it is a long reliable and respected poll, though so are Gallup and Rasmussen with their 8 and 6 point Obama leads.)

The Palin pile-on from the the Manhattan-Beltway media elite also is working a strange and important reaction in the electorate, driving liberals deeper into their blind hate of the accomplished and popular governor, and rallying the conservative base to her cause.  The cultural divide in the country --obscured by the financial mess-- didn't go away, and it will dominate this week and weekend.

Palin faces an enormous challenge, just as she did on the night of her acceptance speech.  She will not be graded on the curve by the MSM as Obama was. 

But she does believe the right things, and understands the crucial choice facing the country.  These are significant advantages.  And if the momentum reverses itself again as is likely, Sarah Palin's performance Thursday night will be the third time she has re-energized the McCain campaign.

A guest column from Clark Judge:

The First Bank Run of the Non-Bank Bank Era
by Clark S. Judge
 
According to a late night email from the House GOP leadership, floor debate on the financial rescue bill may begin as early as 8am Eastern Time and will be limited to three hours.  So the House will almost certainly be discussing the bill by the time this column is posted.
 
No one needs to be told that this is unpopular legislation.  As of early last week, Rasmussen found a large plurality of Americans (44 percent) opposed to it, with only 25 percent in support. Opinion was moving against the proposal, and probably still is.
Read More...

Professor John Mark Reynolds and columnist Rod Dreher have been debating the merits of the Palin nomination.  This is Reynolds' latest with the links to the background provided.  I will try and get them both on the program to discuss.