Secret Memo From Bush: "Don't Throw Up Just Yet!"

Do you remember what it feels like to get carsick or seasick? You need to throw up, but you don't want to because it's so painful? So you avoid it, trying to calm your nauseous stomach? And then finally you just can't put off the inevitable?

I think that's what's been happening in the financial markets. And based on the way the Bush administration has handled past elections, I've gotten a little suspicious about the current fiscal policy.

Sooner or later, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is going to have to come up with a different plan than the one he's currently following: trying not to let the passengers of the Good Ship USA notice that his plan to bail out all of the sickly financial organizations isn't working. Sooner or later, whoever's in charge is going to have to let the economy hit bottom.

You think voters are mad now? You haven't seen anything. And Bush and Cheney know that.

So I think the Bush administration is hoping to keep the markets stable until November 4. They're hoping the passengers won't push the current crew off the side of the Titanic and elect a new crew from the ship's passenger list. They're hoping that if they keep lighting up the sky with firecrackers over THERE or THERE or HERE -- we won't notice the way the ship is listing to the side, the way the water is pouring in the gaping holes just at the water line.

In other words, they're counting on us being Stuck On Stupid.

Yep, I suspect the Bush administration has ordered Paulson and his crew to prop up the economy -- No Matter What! -- until after McCain gets elected.

Once that happens, they'll let the pain hit. That will give Palin and McCain about two years to drag a crane up to the Arctic Ocean and hoist the Titanic back to the surface.

"Too bad about them passengers what's died, matey."

What makes me suspect this?

Well, I'm reading Pulitzer Prize winning author Ron Suskind's The Way of the World. And I figured the Way of Team Bush -- based on its recent history -- would be to do exactly that.

After all, if the Bush administration felt it was worth ruining all trust with the British government just to take out a few terrorists - just so they could grab the news cycle before the 2006 election - just so Bush and his cronies could look like they're doing their job - just so they could get themselves elected again - just in spite of the fact that they had to throw the case against those terrorists out of court - and just in spite of what they knew would happen afterwards: "Oh wow! There went the evidence the British spent lives and years collecting - just because we needed a quick electoral fix and botched the whole thing."

Well. Yeah. I think it's very possible the Bush administration might be willing to make bad financial decisions in the short run just to keep the Republican Party in power.

When I was a kid, my mom called it covering up, and then lying about what I was covering up. But what does my mom know? She's just a sweet mom from Ohio who believes people should tell the truth.

Always.

Am I reaching too far here? Do I sound like a liberal?

Cause I'm actually a conservative Democrat who thinks that when a CEO trashes your business, you should fire him and take him to court and sue his pants off so that he'll never be able to hurt anyone else like that again. Bring criminal charges, if possible.

Yeah, I guess I'm mad. I hear what the Republican party is saying - trying to talk about issues of character, and leadership, and experience.

I swear. I keep listening, and listening, and listening, and all I can think about is what seems to be as plain as the nose on my Aunt Betty's face: the ONLY goal of the current Republican party is to STAY IN POWER -- no matter how many lies they have to tell in order to do so.

All this smells bad - as bad as if there's a mound of dead, stinking rats in Washington, D.C.

So because I like my mom's way of thinking about things, I asked myself, What would my mom do if she found a bunch of dead rats rotting amidst the plumbing underneath the sink and stinking up the kitchen?

I'll tell you what she'd do.

She wouldn't argue about the Character of the rats, or try to say some of the dead rats have better Leadership experience than others. Nope. They're ALL dead. So my mother would assume she needs to clean out the stinking rats.

My mother would get to work and sweep everything out. Once she put the whole mess in the garbage can, she would get a pail of water, and throw in some bleach, and a little Comet, maybe. Then she would wash and scrub and hose down everything underneath the sink until it's all clean. Perhaps she'd use a steel scratcher to get the rotten gunk out of the cracks.

Yep. That would be her solution.

So what's ours?