Globailzation

Frank Rich has one of his best columns of the year today.   It focuses on the way the McCain Palin ticket is stoking anti-Obama fires in a way most ugly.

A Kos dairist, DCDemocrat, reviews Alaskan news coverage of Troopergate, reminding us that further action might be taken against the Governor's unlawful and unethical acts, including impeachment.  

David Leonardt has an excellent essay this morning looking at America's financial overreach and the challenges to come.  

In the Washington Post Sumit Ganguly has a disturbing article on Pakistan's march to becoming a failed state.  

And DemFromCT's morning poll roundup has more good news for Obama.

Happy Sunday.

One More.  From today's lead story in the New York Times: 

As international leaders gathered here on Saturday to grapple with the global financial crisis, the Bush administration embarked on an overhaul of its own strategy for rescuing the foundering financial system.

Two weeks after persuading Congress to let it spend $700 billion to buy distressed securities tied to mortgages, the Bush administration has put that idea aside in favor of a new approach that would have the government inject capital directly into the nation's banks - in effect, partially nationalizing the industry.

As recently as Sept. 23, senior officials had publicly derided proposals by Democrats to have the government take ownership stakes in banks.

The Treasury Department's surprising turnaround on the issue of buying stock in banks, which has now become its primary focus, has raised questions about whether the administration squandered valuable time in trying to sell Congress on a plan that officials had failed to think through in advance.

It has also raised questions about whether the administration's deep philosophical aversion to government ownership in private companies hindered its ability to look at all options for stabilizing the markets.

Some experts also contend that Treasury's decision last month to not use taxpayer money to save Lehman Brothers worsened the panic that quickly metastasized into an international crisis.

On this page, in post after post, essay after essay, we questioned whether Bush and Co had any idea what they were doing, and suggested again and again that the Bailout plan would not resolve the financial crisis.   None of this should come as any suprise for these are the guys who brought us Iraq, Katrina, incredible levels of corruption, out of control spending, declining standards of living, more people in bankruptcy, without health insurance and in poverty.   Virtually everything this Administration has attempted to do has ended up in disaster.  Why all of a sudden did we believe they could get the financial crisis right after ignoring all the warning signs for so long?  

Friends tell me the reason Treasury hasn't signed on to the Gordon Brown plan is that it wasn't their idea, and they couldn't look like they are following the lead of those across the pond. It will be interesting to see what happens here in Washington the next few days, and how Congress reacts to the Administration's apparent repudiation of the sky is falling strategy they made Congress embrace just ten days ago.