Birth of a Backbone?

Remarkably, with only two days to go before disaster strikes (according to dictator wannabe Henry Paulson), the Democrats have yet to capitulate on the $700 billion blank check the Bush government -- or is it now the Paulson government? – is asking for. Capitulation is not out of the Democrats’ system; only yesterday they capitulated on offshore oil drilling. But, in that case, to do the right thing they would have had to buck (ill conceived but nevertheless determined) public opinion. In this case, public opinion is hostile to Wall Street’s malefactors of great wealth, and adamantly opposed to taking on their gambling debts. Wall Street gambled with the economic future of the people they now want to bail them out. Shamelessly, they and their moles in the government, from Paulson on down, want their victims to bear the cost of keeping their riches intact. But the victims will have none of it. Even Republicans can see which way the wind is blowing. Sensing that the Bush boy can’t hurt them any more than he already has, some of them are standing up to Paulson and the Grandees, including Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, on his side. Even John McCain got the message – a week ago Monday, several hours after not getting it. Can Sarah Palin be far behind? Perhaps we’ll know when she finally speaks out or, failing that, when her handlers change the stump speech she reads. But in our joy at seeing Bush and Co. lying dead in the cesspool of GOP politics, we must not overlook what is truly remarkable. For the first time in living memory, the POP, the Party of Pusillanimity, the Party of Pelosi and of the perpetually triangulating Clintons, is showing signs of growing a backbone. It has been forced upon them. But it is nevertheless happening; something no one would have imagined as recently as two weeks ago. Will this genuine “change” keep on happening? Will the Democratic Party’s backbone keep on growing – or is it all just posturing and blather? With the administration’s extortionists in such a hurry, we’ll find out soon enough.