Presidents Right, Left and Center

Did you see the President last night?. He looked awful. I know the presidency ages people but President Bush is not only grey haired now, he also looked grey all over. He appeared tired and drawn and as if he has lost some weight. It also looked as if they tried to hide it with not just coverup but also a touch of rouge on his sallow cheeks. Then there was that noise. Did you hear it? Throughout his speech there was this very low background noise. I might be wrong but it sounded as if it was his stomach. And who could blame him? My stomach would be churning and roiling, too, if I had the entire economy of the United States on my conscience.

Will his speech help? I don't know. People agree something is needed but $700 billion is a lot of money. After the speech a pundit explained what Bush should have. The $700 billion is the max amount and they came up with that number based on the government buying up to 5% of all the bad loans. The President also didn't mention that not all of the loans will go bad. Some of it will be repaid as folks pay off these loans otherwise Uncle Sam will own a lot of houses. I wish President Bush had told the public this as it makes it a bit more palatable to swallow.

Right now though, conservatives are not happy with the idea of government getting involved. In fact this would create one of the largest, if not the largest new government department. On the other hand, liberals aren't happy because, well, I guess because it is Bush's idea. They also want to add in a lot more things to try to further protect the consumer although if the consumers had paid off their loans we might not be in this mess.

Then there is the McCain - Obama power struggle over the whole thing. Was McCain correct in suspending his campaign and trying to call off the debate on Friday? Or is he simply grandstanding or worse, jumping to a quick decision without thinking it through? At first I thought he backed himself against the wall for he could end up looking weak and Obama looking like the leader. But now I think McCain just might be the one looking like a future president.

Obama is looking like the man who said "present" in past votes and avoided making the tough decisions when he said that he would return to Washington if he was needed. Excuse me? He is first and foremost a Senator and this is the most important issue in years to hit Congress and yet he was once again going AWOL rather than actually make a vote.

And one more President has jumped into the fray when Bill Clinton defended John McCain! Clinton appeared on Good Morning America this morning and in discussing McCain's suspension of his campaign said "I presume he did that in good faith since I know he wanted -- I remember he asked for more debates to go all around the country and so I don't think we ought to overly parse that." For a man who is supposed to be campaigning for Obama he sure is going about it in a strange way. On top of his latest defense of McCain, on Monday Clinton defended Sarah Palin. Ironically, the extremely liberal Huffington Post had an article quoting Clinton discussing Palin's appeal and said "I get this," Clinton said. "My view is ... why say, ever, anything bad about a person? Why don't we like them and celebrate them and be happy for her elevation to the ticket? And just say that she was a good choice for him and we disagree with them?"

Back to the economy, you would think that with all these Presidents and wanna be presidents that they might come up with an idea that will help people and Wall Street. For if there was a time to forego politics, now is that time. Meanwhile, there isn't much the American people can do but watch and wait and pray that for once the politicians do the right thing, not the politically expedient thing to do.