Friday night is trash day in politics. All of the stuff that a campaign, or even the White House, has to get out to the media but really doesn’t want covered is thrown out on Friday. Former Senator Phil Gramm’s resignation from Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign was announced this evening. It is widely believed Gramm was one of the chief architects of McCain’s economic plan.
President George W. Bush has the ability to ignore real, hard, solid facts. We have seen this time and time again. Last week, Bush refused to admit that the economy was in a recession. This was after Warren Buffett, who is arguably the most successful businessman of the last 30 years, said we are in a recession. Today, Bush acknowledged that the economy “obviously is going through a tough time.” Well, I guess that’s something.
JP Morgan along with the Feds is backing Bear Stearns, a huge investment bank. As I have said before, there is going to be fall out from the sub-prime mortgage scandal.
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From MSNBC:
Bear Stearns, one of the nation’s biggest and most prominent investment banks, stunned Wall Street Friday by announcing it had turned to a rival bank and the federal government for an emergency bailout.
The surprise, last-ditch rescue effort, announced just before the stock market opened, is the latest troubling sign of how a cascading credit crisis is threatening the liquidity of even Wall Street’s most established firms. (more…)
I was on call last night. I had an opportunity to watch the news. There has been a media frenzy over Elliot Spitzer. New information was being served up almost continuously. Spitzer was thought to be Client #9 in federal papers. Next, we found out that he reportedly paid these high classed hookers $1500 per hour. Only a couple of hours later we found out about a weekend that he went to DC and spent some time with “Kristen”. This morning or late last night we heard that he may have spent over $80,000 over several years. Reports of carefully planned transactions designed to throw off authorities.
It is my belief that politicians need to live up their rhetoric. Elliott Spitzer was compared to Elliott Ness – one of the untouchables. He was a crusader against unethical corporate behavior. He was a bull in a China shop. He made a ton of enemies.
Today Elliott Spitzer resigned.
As the Democrats return to power around the country after 25 – 30 years of Republican domination, Democratic leaders need to be better than Republican counterparts. Better in an ethical way. I think that Elliott Spitzer was the “perfect” democratic politician. He had a strong record for being tough on crime. He took no prisoner yet believed in a progressive agenda. He was being talked about as a future Democratic Presidential candidate in the next 4 – 8 years. All of that is now gone. Completely gone. I’m extremely saddened by Mr. Spitzer’s behavior. I guess the old adage is true if it looks too good to be true it probably is.