Rolling Over to Rescue the Bailout
‘Country First’ John McCain, the former Sheriff of Capitol Hill who "suspended" his campaign to make things happen earlier this week but "unsuspended" his campaign when he left town for the campaign trail before it went down in flames, told CNN’s "American Morning" that the Great Bailout should be re-framed as a "rescue."
"The first thing I’d do is say," the former Sheriff said, "let’s not call it a bailout, let’s call it a rescue because its a rescue. Its a rescue of Main Street America." Do tell.
Politicians of every stripe seem to think that if the people don’t like something, it has the wrong name. Straight Talk Express not working because of too much double-talk? Change the name to Country First.
Country First not working when you couldn’t rally your party to pass a giveaway to Wall Street, just get out of town and blame the failure on the other guy.
All of cable and the networks are rolling over for their bellies to be scratched, helping the dodge that the bailout supporters were not really asking for a bailout, only a rescue. See?
There was a great deal of hyperventilating last night on most of the talkies and news, sort of an "Oh No! What have we done!" chorus: We misnamed the rescue a bailout.
Missing from this steady stream of thumb-sucking was any mention of the substantive reasons voters were outraged. What precisely was in the bailout bill for taxpayers, homeowners, renters? Was there any real cap on the greedy executive compensation packages? Investment in job creation? Rescue for homeowners in foreclosure?
Along with the Oh No What Have We Done is the mantra of The Great Credit Freeze: small businesses won’t be able to meet payroll; 401k and pension funds are cascading in value; there may not even be money in the ATM machine.
The media herd, incredulous that its losing supporters of the bailout, is re-tooling its public message in preparation for next week—if the public understands that this debacle does indeed affect you, and you need to be rescued without anything in the bailout bill for you because the mean old credit freeze is going to blow your paychecks and foreclosed house down, they will get behind it because panic and misinformation is the best medicine for out-of-control voters and taxpayers.
