Winning on tone, not policy
Do Obama and McCain dare to face down the effective president pro tem, Treasury Sec Henry Paulson? Over the weekend it seemed that Paulson was making progress and that congress would sign the Wall St rescue deal soon -- now Obama and McCain have both and it's going to get rough again. But the fact is that the candidates are trying to make a mark having failed so far to convince any serious commentators that they have a real alternative vision to Paulson's. Tax cuts? Err - guys, the money has just been spent on Wall St as makes clear.
The interesting thing is that round one of the meltdown slapdown has been won by Obama on tone, not policy - and that has to be a worry for Republicans. Calling for the sacking of the boss of the Securities Commission (as McCain did) seemed oddly unpresidential. So did the remark about the fundamentals being sound - did he not know that a new twist to the crisis was looming? America is addicted not to oil but to debt. It is as much a moral problem as an economic one. But foreigners thinking (hoping?) that it is all over this time for the US and its global leadership will likely as not be as disappointed as they always have been in the past as points out.
Meanwhile I post simply, as they say in Northern Ireland, for badness!
Hello, I'm 
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