GOP Playing "Lucy" Football

I can't tell you how much it worries me to know that the Republicans will still be in charge of running this country for the next four months. They've shown nothing but outright contempt for the American public all throughout this rotten McCain campaign, the Sarah Palin debacle, last Friday's debate, and especially during the Wall Street crisis of the past week.

This has got to be the most cynical trick of all. While the Democratic leadership was negotiating with the Republican leadership on bringing the $700 billion Paulson bill to a vote, the Republicans already had their attack ads ready, blaming the bill's passage on the Dems.

It's classic "Lucy" football, where Charlie Brown gets the ball whisked away from him at the last minute. Make overtures to bipartanship, bring Democrats on board for unpopular, controversial bill, then when the bill passes into law, beat those Dems mercilessly as "big government spenders." Now the same Republican Party that caused this financial crisis, and whose President and Treasury Secretary aggressively pushed the bailout plan, can sell themselves as the outsiders.

It's so unbelievably reckless that the GOP would play politics at a time like this. Those of us who have watched Bush closely all these years have come to expect this behavior, but even now, with the American financial system at risk of collapse, it's deeply shocking. Everything is just a game to these Republicans. There is no policy, there is no governing. It's all about looting the Treasury and playing cynical political games. It's all about the pundit deathmatch on cable tv.

Only one thing happened. The Paulson bill failed the vote in the House. Oops.

Hey, didn't John McCain "suspend" his campaign so he could single-handily broker a deal and get this rescue bill passed? Wasn't he supposed to get his own party to toe the line? You know, support their own President's bill? What happened to that? McCain sure liked to claim credit for the bill's passage, right up to the minute House Republicans killed it.

By then, the GOP attack ads were already airing in several markets. Blaming Obama and the Democrats for passing the $700b Wall Street bailout. The Bush-Paulson Wall Street bill. Which was killed by Republicans in the House. Then the Dow dropped nearly 800 points.

I hear that Newt Gengrich was pushing hard for Republicans to vote down the Paulson bill. Which he then turned around and supported. Word is he's eyeing a run for President in 2012.