Viva Pelosi!

Harry Truman:

I don't give them hell.
I give them the truth and they think it's hell.

I take no position, pro or con, on the negotiated package to solve the economic crisis which was defeated yesterday in the House. It's too complicated for me. There are smart people on both sides (as well as not-so smart people).

I am just struck by what motivates some Republicans. In this short century, it's only been in these last two years that GOP-ers decry 'partisanship' and plea for 'bipartisanship'. For the first part of the century, they were fine and all-aboard with Tom DeLay's K-Street regime of ignoring, not only Democratic input, but Democratic votes as well.

So they are blaming Democrats' 'partisan politics' for the fact that their own Republicans defeated the so-called rescue package. Now they cry "politics ahead of country" (John McCain's mouthpiece Douglas Holtz-Eakin). And they are blaming Speaker Nancy Pelosi for "giving a partisan voice that poisoned our conference" (House Republican Leader John Boehner).

What, then, was so untruthful in Pelosi's remarks? Well, there is her prepared speech. It's well worth a read. But here is where she departed from her prepared remarks:

When President Bush took office he inherited President Clinton's surpluses — four years in a row, budget surpluses on a trajectory of $5.6 trillion in surplus. And with his reckless economic policies within two years he had turned that around and now eight years later the foundation of that fiscal irresponsibility, combined with an anything-goes economic policy, has taken us to where we are today.

They claim to be be free-market advocates when it’s really an anything-goes mentality: no regulation, no supervision, no discipline. And if you fail you will have a golden parachute and the taxpayer will bail you out. Those days are over. The party is over in that respect.

..... Democrats believe in a free market. We know that it can create jobs, it can create wealth, it can create many good things in our economy. But in this case, in its unbridled form as encouraged, supported by the Republicans — some in the Republican Party, not all — it has created not jobs, not capital, it has created chaos.

GOP Congressman Daryl Issa curiously did not blame Pelosi's speech for the package's defeat when I heard him on C-SPAN last night. But what he did say revealed to me what Republicans mean when they revile "politics". Issa accused Democrats of wanting to bury Reaganism: to lay one more coffin on top of Ronny's, is actually the way he put it.

That's what Republicans are trying to save. They are not trying to put country first, over politics. They are trying to put Reagan ideology over on the country, one more time. It's not the common welfare they wish to salvage: it's Reaganism.

All Pelosi is saying is look at the track record in this century and understand that self-regulation is not a reliable curb against the excessive "creative destruction" that unfettered capitalism promises. Contempt for government regulation is no longer acceptable.