Nancy Pelosi And Co. need a reality check...

So everybody who cares knows by now that the "Bailout Bill" failed in the House today. If you were to not look at the actual numbers and just hear the various Democrats come out with a stern disapproving look on their faces, you'd be inclined to think it was the fault of all "those Republicans". Alas, Ms. Pelosi, you and your friends are a bit...misguided. But kudos to you for making the most of this opportune time to be a fricking partisan as you possibly can. Nice effort there.

I'm not going to go into detail about her silly attempt at convincing congressmen to vote for this bill by bashing the very people whose votes she needed. Why in the world would she even do that? Any reasonably intelligent person would not think to put somedown down right before a vote you hope they cast! It's like having a baseball player choosing between two teams, and the one team tells him he's been playing like crap for the past few years and is essentially good for nothing (and by the way his coach sucks too), and then getting indignant when the player chooses to go to the other team. WTF?? I think she must have wanted the vote to not pass. After all, it's keeping the economy in the forefront of the news, which is good for Obama and bad for McCain. It's not like she actually *cares* about how people's investments are being drained. (For that matter, that probably goes for the lot of them - both sides)

But, I digress. Despite her...speech, I don't think it caused the 12 people to vote the other way. I think there were things in the bill that just couldn't be swallowed. Then again, maybe her rant did offend some people, childish as that reaction may be. Whatever the reason; that didn't upset me personally. It was really what she (and, admittedly, her cohorts) said *after* the vote that got to me.

She said: "...The Democratic side more than lived up to its side of the bargain", then she talked about the numerous 'improvements' to be bill she claimed they were "bipartisan". Then, "WE delivered on our side of the bargain...clearly that message has not been heard by the Republican caucus" The others around her said basically the same thing. It boiled down to: "The President said we need to get it together and push this thing through and we did our part but those lackeys on the other side of the aisle decided to spoil the fun and go against THE PRESIDENT (gasp)." (as if they're always best buds with Mr. P.) There's only one problem with that assessment. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH PARTISANSHIP. Let's look at the numbers shall we?

Only SIXTY PERCENT of Democrats voted for the plan!! If you didn't know the numbers, you would have assumed from their comments that nearly all of the Democrats voted for the plan. On the other side, 67% of the Republicans voted against, so a third voted for it. Even if you would have gotten the needed votes, couldn't they have come from the Democratic party?!? Why not put any "blame" on them? After all, almost HALF of the Democratic party voted "no". I would think that regardless of the issue, big or small, they have a hell of a lot easier time getting their own party to vote for it than the other party. The one guy even said "60% of the Democratic party voted to put aside their feelings/emotions/experiences and vote for the best interest of their country. 67% of the Republicans decided to put their political ideology ahead of the best interests of our great nation." He makes no mention at all of the 40% that also voted "no". I guess their "no" was not an indication of their "political ideology" and was probably a case of punching the vote card wrong or something... And while he was at it, he didn't bother to acknowledge the 1/3 of the Republicans that actually DID vote his way. One more thing - if they were TRULY united in this fight to do the President's bidding, then they could push this through without any say so of the Republican party, but of course, they're not.

Still, if those were the only numbers you looked at, you could still (weakly) argue that the vote was along partisan division lines, and that divide caused the failed vote, but let's look at the numbers that really matter. The AMERICAN PEOPLE.

60% of Americans think the government would not manage this properly
Over half outright oppose the bailout plan
28% think the government will not do enough to fix the problems that exist
(these were on the ticker during the aforementioned press conference)

If you can't get the majority of the country to be in on this, then why in the hell would you expect our elected representatives to be on board? Droves and droves of people are hammering their representatives and threatening to pull their support in the next election if they vote for this thing as it is now. I know it's not going to happen, but if the greedy little fingers up there could just keep their hands out of the cookie jars and actually try to do something positive with no side-benefits for themselves, then this thing would go through in a heartbeat. Can you believe they're putting earmarks on this thing??

Well, whenever it does go through, and rest assured SOMETHING will go through eventually, I hope it's by a bit larger of a margin than 51%/49%. And if it is just that slim, then I suppose half the country will just have to get over it.