BAILOUT

Posted at 8:47 p.m. ET: 

The bailout bill is the major event of the moment, indeed of many moments, yet there is little news about it.  The Politico reports that both presidential candidates may find a way to skip the vote on the bill when it comes up in the Senate, possibly tomorrow:

DETROIT, Mich.— The financial crisis is the only thing Barack Obama and John McCain talk about these days.

But neither nominee would commit Sunday to actually returning to the Senate this week to vote on the $700 billion bill aimed at preventing widespread economic collapse.

The dichotomy between their campaign trail rhetoric and their absence in the Senate is nothing new in this presidential race. Both nominees have spoken extensively in their travels over the last 20 months about bills on which they do not vote because they could not make it back to the Senate.

Yet no other piece of legislation has dominated the debate in this election cycle nearly as much as the financial bailout.

The fact is that John McCain tried to get the housing mortgage system reformed in 2005, but failed.  Obama, as usual, has no record of helping to solve any problem, let alone this one.  Yet, he is likely to be elected president.

Some wit made the comment that this may be the first presidential election where the winner demands a recount.  The problems facing a new president, from economic catastrophe to the rise of a nuclear Iran, are overwhelming.   Even former Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle has suggested that the new president may only be permitted by the voters to serve one term because the chances of success are so small.  Yet, these problems provide a great opportunity for a political extremist, a demagogue, especially one helped along by a blind, ask-no-questions press.  The radical depends on conditions being very, very bad.  He also depends on shutting down serious questions.

Consider recent attempts by the Obama legions to shut down a Chicago radio station's interviews with Stanley Kurtz, who was investigating Obama's ties to radical Bill Ayers.  Consider suggestions from Democrats in Congress to reinstate the fairness doctrine in broadcasting, which could easily kill talk radio by requiring stations to give equal air time to differing points of view, a quick road to bankruptcy.  Consider reports out of Missouri - and here I'm indebted to many readers who've alerted me - that Obama's forces are organizing law-enforcement officials to take some unspecified actions against those who "distort" Obama's record.   

I don't believe that every negative event should be labeled a crisis.  We overuse the word.  But I do sense we are present at a dangerous moment in history.  Edward R. Murrow once said that the New Deal, which he favored was, like the surgeon's scalpel, "dangerous."  This new bailout package is dangerous.  The potential election of a man like Obama, whose views expressed in the campaign are strangely different from the views he's expressed most of his life, is dangerous.  The collapse of the mainstream media is dangerous.

Franklin Roosevelt's great gift was that he gave the American people confidence.  One could agree or disagree with individual policies, but his leadership abilities in times of despair were remarkable, as one of his opponents said upon learning of his death in 1945.  Barack Obama gives us no confidence.  He doesn't even seem, at times, to believe in his own country, and his wife's opinions have been stated quite bluntly.  John McCain, with all his faults, inspires us to believe again in our greatness.  The American people, in weeks, will decide whether they accept that belief, or whether they'll turn their backs on John McCain and elect a silver tongue mounted atop an empty suit.

September 28, 2008.