Why are house republicans REALLY against any kind of deal whatsoever?

Welcome to Washington D.C., the sign says. Hunter Thompson wrote about coming to Washington when he covered the campaign trail in ‘72 and it wasn’t a pretty town then, either. The roads leading into the district were just as foul and littered with vermin and swine and new lawyers. There was probably more acid then and a little more tact, but it stank to holy shits back then too. According to Hunter.

But now it’s worse. Every since John McCain swooped down over Washington and it’s hordes of frantic legislators in the midst of reaching a middle ground where this financial bailout package is concerned, something has really started to stink.

Actually, it started to smell bad earlier than that. John McCain was due to be on David Letterman’s show in New York last week and canceled at the last minute, saying that he had to “suspend his campaign activities” to “immediately return to Washington”.

By “immediately”, of course, McCain meant that he was going to

• go straight to Katie Couric’s show, also on CBS

• get his makeup done (I’m not making this up)

• give her and interview at the same time he would’ve given Letterman his

• go to dinner

• RETURN TO HIS HOTEL for the night

• sleep

• have a nice breakfast AT ANOTHER HOTEL

…and then catch a flight to Washington.

And why? Because he couldn’t “phone this one in”? Not only has he not phoned ANYTHING in since April 8th but while he was physically in Washington he didn’t go to the hill, where the discussions were being had. Mostly he stayed in his campaign headquarters, except when he went to the White House photo op or when he went out to dinner with Joe Leiberman. Did he not think we’d find out about this?

Of course he knew; he’s an obscene and gross little maggot but he’s not unconscious or stupid. Something else was up.

We don’t, at this point know what that was, and it’s starting to look like we never will. The debate went as well as McCain could’ve hoped for, with Barack Obama merely spanking him rather than full on embarrassing the aging senator. And now we have Chuck Schumer questioning Alberto Gonzalez about who sent him to the hospital to strong arm then sick Attorney General, John Ashcroft, into cooperating with the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretapping initiative. Wouldn’t you know it? The little runt wants to talk! He wants to answer questions and say that he “was there on behalf of the President of the United States”!

You’d think this was a great way to get attention off of the financial situation but the American people are too focused, too myopic for that. Remember, illegal wiretapping is sooo last year. The American public doesn’t have time for remembering the things their government broke last year and haven’t fixed yet. They’re too focused on what their government is breaking THIS year, and this kind of distraction won’t get them very far.

Well, it’ll get Alberto Gonzales pretty far. From employment, that is. Nobody with a soul or a concept of hygiene has been able to stomach hiring the man since he “resigned”. And after this weaseling and finger pointing that resembles retired generals, Scott McLellan and many others who after leaving the Bush Administration decide they’ve seen the light and want to tell the truth again as if they’ve been under the Imperius Curse or something, well, let’s just say that a woman in white gloves wouldn’t GIVE him her ketchup popsicle.

But. I’ve strayed from John McCain, and how much he stinks, which is, I guess what they wanted me to do. Those of you still with me here, well, you’re winning.

More on topic: it stinks. House Republicans have been urging no bailout, no bailout as if someone was listening. But they know, just like everyone else seems to, that something like this, in some form or other, is necessary. To refuse it outright would be foolish. To do nothing would be even worse, though I’m not sure anyone is seriously proposing that.

(Any interesting quotes you’d like to contribute, representative Bachman?)

So why would they oppose it? Let’s see…

They could genuinely feel that it’s unconstitutional to give someone this much power over funds and not stand for that…but they’re house republicans and everyone who’s been around knows that they always end up getting some of the pie so let’s not kid ourselves here.

It’s really a politics thing.

Going along with this would mean that if it works, Democrats get credit for working bipartisanly…if it doesn’t work, your name is attached to something that failed…again.

Going against it means that if it works, you can claim that they got lucky and you didn’t want to take that kind of irresponsible risk (which is superficially, at least, similar to Obama’s position on the surge in Iraq though I think he’s not nearly vocal enough of the fact that the surge won’t have “worked” until they define what “working” means – just because violence is down doesn’t mean you’ve removed any part of the problem…it could be any number of things like, say, 30K extra troops suppressing the problem, which is hardly a solution.)

Whew. I almost strayed again on that one. But I’m back.

So there’s no political reason for the House Republicans to back up this deal. The democrats, if they want to be responsible and pass something they think is necessary, might have to go into it without them, and take some ownership of the solution. Imagine that. Balls.

But remember: doing SOMETHING is not the goal here. Doing nothing can’t realistically happen but they must do the right thing. And any democrat who votes for a bill with the wrong provisions (see the previous article) will not receive my vote again. It’s as simple as that.