Political interlude.

Sorry to talk about politics here, but I woke up this morning and checked the New York Times online while eating my bowl of muesli (as I do every morning), and the headline was "Senate Abandons Automaker Bailout Bid." The article contains the following quote from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell:

Mr. McConnell added: “The administration negotiated in good faith with the Democratic majority a proposal that was simply unacceptable to the vast majority of our side because we thought it frankly wouldn’t work.”

How about nothing, Mr. McConnell? How do you think nothing is going to work?

Regardless of one's opinions on the advisability of large-scale government intervention in private industry, I think that sentence stands as a stunning example of blinkered logic and the yellow-bellied spitefulness of Congressional politics. Since the "vast majority" of the Republicans had advanced no viable plan, they knew that by killing the bill (which passed the House), they were killing any possibility of taking any kind of action at all. And it's not even because of principle! He does not say "because, as supporters of free-market capitalism, we thought government intervention into private industry would be unacceptable" (and he'd have to add "in this case," because I seem to remember reading a little something about a $750 billion bailout package for other industries). He only says he didn't think the other plan would work. So now we'll never have a chance to find out if it would have worked, and I am wondering, more than ever this morning, what coming home is going to be like.