A Bad Case of the Bail-Out Blues

* The bailout is wrong. The bailout is bad.

* $700 billion is a lot of money. But that's just the opening ante. Get used to saying "trillion."

* Conservatives need to do the bailout what they did to the Harriet Miers nomination to the Supreme Court.

* Nancy Pelosi is saying she won't support the bailout plan without significant Republican support in the House. Congressional Republicans should oppose the bailout as a bloc. Any Republican who votes for the bailout should be voted out of office in November. Enough is enough.

* If Lehman Brothers can fail, so can the federal government itself. This is a wake-up call. Is anyone listening?

* Congress knew Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac were getting too big for their britches years ago. Congress ignored the potential problems back then, thus making matters worse today. Will Congress now finally recognize the dangers of kicking the Social Security and Medicare time-bombs down the road and address the problems sooner rather than later? Don't hold your breath.

* Let's not forget that the stage for this disaster was set by the Clinton administration, including the fact that the chief executive in charge of the Fannie Mae debacle was Clinton's former budget director Franklin Raines. Raines, as described by Wikipedia, was "accused by The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the regulating body of Fannie Mae, of abetting widespread accounting errors, which included the shifting of losses so senior executives, such as himself, could earn large bonuses."

* John McCain's support among conservatives was tepid, at best, before tapping Sarah Palin to be his running mate. He's enjoyed tremendous support, enthusiastic even, since the announcement from the Right. And then reality set in and conservatives are once again facing the real John McCain. And it ain't pretty.

* First, McCain said he would fire SEC chief Chris Cox - a man highly regarded and respected by conservatives and who had nothing to do with all those financial companies going belly-up. Strike one.

* McCain followed that up by announcing support for a $25 billion bailout of the auto industry; a clear effort to "buy" Michigan in the upcoming election with taxpayer money. Strike two.

* And then Sen. McCain lent his support to a $700 billion Wall Street bailout while simultaneously calling for greater government regulation. Strike three.

* In the current domestic economic crisis, John McCain has "struck out." At least with fiscal conservatives.

* The biggest political danger to Sarah Palin isn't that she loses on November 4th as John McCain's running mate. Of greater concern is if she wins and is "ruined" by having to support John McCain's sure-to-be non-conservative agenda on a number of issues over the next four years. That won't help in a run against Hillary Clinton in 2012.

* Sarah Palin says she's a conservative. Sarah Palin says she's a maverick. What better way to prove both than by bucking her running mate and coming out against the bailout?

- courtesy of Chuck Muth