Well. This is exciting, isn’t it. I refer, of course, to the House of Representatives going ahead and rejecting the proposed $700bn economic bailout plan today.
The ‘bonkers’ part is a bunch of Republican Congressmen claiming it woz Nancy wot won it and that their bill was shot down by partisan politics. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gave a speech supporting the bill, but was cutting about the Republican party and in particular the policies of one George W Bush. The Congressmen felt that she was overly partisan and that the bill required bipartisan cooperation to save the markets.
There’s two things wrong with that, and the first one is in the numbers. If partisan politics was to blame, and the moaning noises made by these congressmen are to be believed, you would imagine that the Democrats halted the bill with their house majority, yes? So, Democrats voting against the bill, Republicans for…
- Democrats: Yea: 140; Nay: 95.
- Republicans: Yea: 65; Nay: 133;
Hmmm. Not exactly how it happened – though not an entirely surprising result that the most left-leaning party in America supports the state buying out most of the financial sector1.
The second thing that’s wrong with the outrage over ‘Partisan politics’ is the same thing I wonder whenever I hear Obama complaining about partisanship: the reason the American system works is the disagreement between the two parties. If you argue against partisanship, you argue against competition making everybody stronger. You argue against the inherent checks and balances of a system where politicians are accountable to their oppositions. You argue against giving voters a valid choice between two different options.
I hope that partisanship causes more bills to fail. I hope that the Republican incumbents are unable top function, in penance for the problems they’ve caused in America in the last 8 years. I’ve never seen the attraction of Bush, just as I’ve never seen what’s so great about Brown.
I think I’m going to stop talking about politics for a while.
Puppies are cute.
- Americans see Democrats and Republicans as ‘left and right’, but on a British scale they’re really ‘right and righter’. in today’s political climate I see it as perfectly reasonable to be simultaneously a moderate conservative (in the British sense) and a Democrat (in the American sense). Of course, I would see it like that – that’s me. [↩]
Nice to see the right kind of puppies on a family-friendly site. And, yes, they’re so damned cute. I want the on the right, with the silly ears – he looks as if he means business.
Pelosi is typical of those I’ve loathed way before they came into real power. She could do with a night in a motel with, how can I put this, a bit of rough. Bang goes the family-friendly site – and Pelosi. Her latest appearance in which she fluffed her way through seemed to have the extended Addams family behind her.
The situation would have been sorted out if it wasn’t for Morticia and an election year, let’s face it. Ditto the UK. Now we can really see who the representatives put first.
Shenanigans!
Tizzy
September 30, 2008 at 2:24 am