9/30 Roundup: Bailout Fallout, Double Dates with Joe

- As you might have heard, the House rejected the bailout bill yesterday by a vote of 228 to 205, and the Dow Jones plunged 777 points-- the biggest single-day drop in two decades.

- Why did it happen? The Times sees a failure of leadership in Congress, and David Brooks calls the no-voters "nihilists."

- The best answer, however, comes from Chris Cillizza at The Fix: The bill was so massively unpopular among voters that those congresspeople facing tough elections couldn't afford to vote yes.

- The Post backs up Cillizza's idea, illustrating just how much most Americans distrusted the bill, and distrusted their leaders who wrote it. The Journal also documents how voter fury killed the bill.

- Courtney Martin at the American Prospect writes that voters have good reason to rebel. The middle class has been ignored for too long.

- In Mother Jones, former Wall Streeter Nomi Prins says "good riddance." The bill was a bad deal for average people, and voters were right to oppose it.

- The early word from the Republican camp in congress was that they couldn't vote for the bill because Nancy Pelosi hurt their feelings with a partisan speech.  Barney Frank let 'em have it.

- John McCain, by contrast, blamed the bill's failure on... Barack Obama.  McCain accused him, once again of "phoning it in."  This was shortly after McCain, literally, phoned it in.

- The Fed and the Treasury are weighing their options. The Times editorial board writes that work can be done to fix the failed bill.  A flawed bill, they say, is better than none at all.

- Remember last week when Simon joked that perhaps McCain was evading the debate because he had a dinner date on Friday night with Joe Lieberman? Well, guess where McCain was on Saturday night, rather than in negotiations at Congress.  On a double date with Joe Lieberman.

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