Whenever I go to the Wall Street Journal mobile Web site on my Treo — something I do about once a day — it defaults to the main page that initially loaded at 08:32:00 EDT on Jan. 4 of this year. I'm not sure why it does that, especially since if I then refresh the page, it goes to the current one — without changing the URL or anything. The shift is dramatic, since the site was redesigned a couple of months back, with a different color scheme and everything.

But lately, I've been a little reluctant to refresh the page and bring it up to the moment. That's because on the frozen-in-time page that is my default, the following things are true:

• The Dow is up 12.76 points, to 13,056.72.
• The Nasdaq is down 6.95, to 2,602.68.
• The S&P 500 is even, at 1,447.16.
• The lead headline is "Obama, Huckabee Win Iowa." It's particularly cool that THIS should be the preserved moment, since it was the moment when fresh possibilities were opened. (Here's what I wrote about it at the time.) The two candidates with the freshest, least angry, most positive messages in their respective parties had overcome the gloomy partisan warrior types such as Hillary and Mitt. Iowa sent the signal that good things could happen in this election year. It was the moment that it became possible for Obama to win the S.C. primary, since black voters here had been withholding support because they didn't think he was viable. All those white Iowans backing him changed their minds. It was a moment when a person who was not a supporter of Hillary or Mitt (or Rudy) could say, "Maybe something good can happen." Huckabee's win was good news for those of us who liked McCain in particular, since Huckabee's win destroyed Romney's momentum, opening the way for McCain wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.
• A stock market story said stocks were expected to climb Friday, "with traders awaiting a key report on December payrolls."

So it was just a good day all around. Yes, there were some ominous rumblings here and there. The dollar wasn't doing well because of "fears about a potential recession" (which we now know we were already in. Japanese stock prices fell because of "concerns about the state of the global economy." But on the whole, the news was good. Things were looking up.

So you see why it's sort of nice that I get to revisit that time at the touch of a button.

OK, now the NYT doesn't look so bad. Remember my column about that paper's hyberbolic fulminations about a certain current president?

Well, they've been outdone by a letter writer on our very own page today, one Jack Heape of Ridgeway:

… thereby leaving the Gray Lady in the dust.

But you know, it occurs to me that we ought to have different categories for professional and amateur commentary. No serious editorial board would go that far. Yes, the NYT went overboard with their Conradesque use of "horror," but no professional would grasp at absolute terms to the extent of leaving himself no way out, such as with "the entire Bush administration's creed," or "one ongoing criminal enterprise since day one." Professionals hedge; they leave themselves room. Amateurs don't, so the comparison is unfair.

Moving on to the subject, however: I keep thinking these folks are going to calm down, now that Obama's been elected. Maybe the calming will begin after the inauguration. Let's certainly hope so.

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
ON NOV. 15 on the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, Gov. Mark Sanford took a courageous stand. Just ask him, he’ll tell you.
    The piece started out with the customary tone of self-congratulatory righteousness that is one of the principal reasons the leaders of his own party in the S.C. State House hate to see him coming:

    I find myself in a lonely position. While many states and local governments are lining up for a bailout from Congress, I went to Washington recently to oppose such bailouts. I may be the only governor to do so.

    So is the image etched sharply enough in your mind’s eye yet? He is Horatio at the bridge, holding back the invaders. He is the boy on the burning deck, “whence all but he had fled.” The big-government barbarians are at the gate, and only he stands against them, the double-edged sword of free markets gripped tightly in his unwavering hand.
    Thank God for Mark Sanford, we are to think, as we read on:

    But I suspect I’m not entirely alone, as there are a lot of taxpayers who aren’t pleased with Christmas coming early for politicians….

    And therein lies the key. He’s not alone, and he knows it. He’s striking a pose before a crowd. This has worked well for him. It got him re-elected in 2006. Despite the fact that he had alienated most people who actually had to deal with him in the course of trying to govern our poor state, he managed to strike all the right attitudes to persuade a majority of voters that he was their tribune, and only he could keep the “politicians” (which reminds me, when was the last time you saw this guy working in the private sector?) from robbing you blind. (Of course, it also helped that the Democrats nominated Tommy Moore.)
    This image has resonated with a lot of folks outside South Carolina as well. The Club for Growth, for instance, and Howard Rich. The folks who edit the editorial pages of The Journal are thoroughly enchanted; they’re the ones who kept alive the idea that our governor would be John McCain’s running mate long after it had been dismissed by everyone else. (Maybe he should have picked Mr. Sanford, you may be thinking at this point. Not at all. Mr. Sanford appeals to a narrower sliver of the GOP base — economic libertarians — than the red-meat, populist slice that loved Sarah Palin.)
    The very day that his op-ed piece was in the Journal, we also read that Mr. Sanford had been chosen to chair the Republican Governors’ Association. So they’re sold.
    Mark Sanford calls the idea of federal aid for his state — a proposal I had not even heard about before he was posturing against it — “Christmas coming early for politicians.” As if any spending from Washington went into the pockets of anyone who thought South Carolina might need the help. He says that while his own prisons chief, Jon Ozmint (one of the most conservative men you’ll ever want to meet) is talking about releasing prisoners early because he doesn’t have the money to keep them behind bars — despite the fact that South Carolina spends less per prisoner than any other state.
    I know Jon Ozmint; he doesn’t want the money for himself.
    Now at this point all you libertarians out there have decided I’m sticking up for big spending. You’re mistaken. I don’t know whether the federal government should help out the states or not. Seems to me the feds have a lot on their plates, and they’ve already done more bailing out (mostly in the vaunted private sector, mind you — you know, the depository of fiscal wisdom and responsibility) than I ever wanted to see.
    The same day that op-ed piece ran, I read in The State that the federal government had spent money to open a grocery store and a bank in the Celia Saxon neighborhood of Columbia. I looked at all of those politicians cutting that ribbon, and I wondered whether that federal investment was a good idea. I understand the need: The lack of viable retail businesses in a neighborhood contributes to a host of social ills — or at least, occurs in tandem with such ills. But, I wondered, if it took federal money to set them up, can the businesses be viable? I hope so, because the neighborhood could use the shot in the arm. But will it work?
    That’s how I look at such spending: Will it work? Will the investment — in prison guards, or schools, or Wall Street, or a grocery store — pay off, and have the intended beneficial effect on the community or the state or the nation?
    Are there some politicians who will always say “yes” to the spending? You betcha, as another governor would say. But I wouldn’t look to those politicians to help me figure out whether spending is wise or not in a given instance.
    Nor would I ask Mark Sanford, because he’s just as predictable. Maybe more federal largesse flowing to our cash-strapped state would be a good idea, and maybe it wouldn’t be. But in trying to figure that out, the last person I’m going to ask is our governor. He’s not the boy who stood on the burning deck in the iconic Victorian poem. He’s the boy from the Aesop fable — the one who cried “big government” so many times that when government finally did go too far, you couldn’t tell by him.

Read the Sanford column and more at thestate.com/bradsblog/.

Well, this is interesting. We’ve got Lindsey Graham singing Rahm Emanuel’s praises, and I just received commentary from the liberal Rabbi Michael Lerner of Tikkun magazine saying… well, here’s what he said:

Rahm Emanuel is no Reason for Hope or Celebration
    by Rabbi Michael Lerner

    Election night tens of millions of us wept for joy. We sang the songs that we had sung as young men and women when we were fighting segregation in the south and then in the North, some of us being beaten, others jailed, some even killed. For the first time in three decades we could sing "Imagine" and "The Times They are a’Changing" without feeling that we were holding onto utopian fantasies that had been buried by the cynical realists who have shaped public discourse.
    How exciting to believe again in the possibility of America as the potential embodiment of our ideals for social justice, peace, and ecological sanity. We could hardly believe our own eyes-we were living through the rebirth of a nation and its attempt to heal its racist past.
    So no wonder why many of us were shocked and deeply disappointed when we learned on Thursday that Congressman Rahm Emanuel was to be the Chief of Staff in the Obama White House.
    Emanuel, for those who don’t recall, was the Congressman who traveled the country in 2006 finding "suitable" candidates in "swing districts" to run against Republican incumbents, and in many instances he succeeded. But his theory of how to succeed was destructive: he sought the most conservative possible candidates in each district, insisting that local Democratic Party organizations reject more liberal candidates who, he feared, might not win.
    There were many among the House Democrats who deplored this tactic. The main issue on the mind of the electorate was the war in Iraq, and public opinion had moved so far in opposition to that war that the Democratic leadership in the House was pushed to proclaim that it would cut off funding for the war if Democrats won control of Congress. Well, the outcome was that Democrats did win control, but since the candidates that Emanuel picked were more conservative and militarist than the mainstream of the Party, they were not reliable allies when it came to voting against war funding.  Instead of cutting fund for the war, Nancy Pelosi’s house increased the funding, explaining that they had to appear "responsible" in order to solidify their control of Congress in 2008..
    Clever? Not for the people, Americans and Iraqis, killed or wounded in the meantime.   
    This was no mistake on Emanuel’s part. Rahm Emanuel has a long history of militarist ideology behind him. His father was a member of the ultra-right-wing terrorist organization Etzel that killed British civilians as part of their anti-British struggle in Palestine in the 1940s. Emanuel, himself a citizen of Israel as well as the United States, has been one of several Congressional leaders enforcing the "Israel Lobby" concensus on the Democrats, in the process shutting out the peace voices that believe Israel’s security would be better served by the U.S. putting pressure on Israel to end the Occupation, move the Wall to inside the pre-67 boundaries, and remove the settlers from the West Bank or tell them to live there as Palestinian citizens.
    It’s not just the pro-peace and reconciliation forces that are unlikely to be given a serious hearing in a White House in which Rahm Emanuel controls who gets to talk to the President. Emanuel will almost certainly be protecting Obama from all of us spiritual progressives and those of us who describe ourselves as the Religious Left-so that our commitment to single-payer universal health care, carbon taxes for environmental protection, a Homeland Security strategy based on generosity and implemented through a  Global Marshall  Plan, will be unlikely to get a serious hearing in the White House.
    When these issues were avoided by Obama during the campaign, most of us spiritual progressives told ourselves, "He’s just being political, but once elected he’ll reveal himself committed to the values that he whispered into our ears privately over the course of the past many years."  The Rahm Emanuel selection is an early warning that the peace and justice agenda dropped by Obama after he won the Democratic nomination may be permanently on hold, and the progressives themselves may have to settle for "access" and flowery words at an inauguration address rather than the substance of change. For many of us, just the fact of having a brilliant young black man in the White House will be such a healing experience that we won’t care about this newly emerging reality: unless Obama creates some other path to access and to public input into his policies by those of us who helped build his electoral success, or unless we organize to do so outside the framework of his campaign organization, we may be in for lots of disappointments.

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org, chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org, author of 11 books (most recently the 2006 national best-seller The Left Hand of God) and as a member of Rabbis for Obama recently debated Bill Kristol about how Jews should vote in the election.

… which, as I read it, sort of gives me further reason to like Mr. Emanuel. No offense there, Rabbi, but
the idea that Obama would pick as his chief of staff someone responsible for recruiting the moderates who gave the Democrats their congressional victory in 2006 (a far cry from the Nancy Pelosis and Harry Reids) is very encouraging to us over here at the UnParty. Rabbi Lerner made me feel a little better with almost every word he wrote. (Except for maybe the bit about his Daddy being a terrorist, which, let’s face it, is a BIT unfair to lay at the younger Mr. Emanuel’s feet.)

But before we hold a party to celebrate, I want to confess the very first impression I had of Mr. Emanuel, when I first saw him standing next to Barack Obama earlier this week (I had heard his name before, but I don’t remember having seen photos of him): He looked like an assassin. He had dead eyes, and something about that and the set of his jaw seemed to communicate that this was one of those True Believers who sees himself as on the side of absolute truth, and anyone in the way will be swept aside ruthlessly. Think of The Operative in "Serenity," without all the warm, fuzzy, faux-conflicted compassion and regret.

So it made perfect sense when I read that Emanuel was expected to play "bad cop" to Obama’s "good cop."

That was my first impression, though. I just note it here to get it on the record. But the more I hear about this guy, the more cautiously optimistic — audaciously hopeful, you could say — I am.

Last night I gave up and went to bed in the 8th inning with the Phillies (hereinafter referred to as "the Real Team") having only a one-run lead over Tampa (the Team that Did Not Exist When I Was A Kid, So How Can It be a Real Team?).

The Real Team held on, but I didn’t know that until this morning.

So my question is this: Since both of these teams are from East Coast states (despite Tampa being on the Gulf, which keeps me from saying "East Coast cities"), and well within the Eastern time zone, why on Earth can’t these games start earlier, so as to end at a civilized hour? I mean, really: Does California care that much?

While I’m on the subject (sort of), does pitcher Cole Hamels remind anyone but me of a young John Cleese? He looks like he should be in a Monty Python skit about a baseball player. I kept expecting him to do a Silly Walk off the mound…

In keeping with my policy of not writing much of anything — columns, e-mails, what have you — without offering it in some way for discussion on the blog, here’s the editorial I wrote for today’s paper on what The Wall Street Journal termed "The Beltway Crash." Actually, tell you what — I’ll give you the Director’s Cut version, before I had to eliminate two inches because we had TWO subjects worthy of lead-editorial status on the page (the other was about homelessness in Columbia). Anyway, here’s a link to the published version, and here’s the longer one:

In time of crisis,
our leaders fail us
ON MONDAY, WE SAW that our nation is suffering from a shortage more profound than the looming collapse of credit — a leadership deficit.
    The president can’t lead, and it seems painfully obvious that he knows it. His brief televised comments to the nation have been startlingly unconvincing.
    As for Congress — after “leaders” worked across party lines for several days, we were treated to appallingly petty displays of partisanship before, during and after the 228-205 vote against the rescue plan.
    That was a clarifying moment. While sincere people had valid objections to the plan originally put forward by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and there was much to object to in the amended plan the negotiators had come up with, its rejection on Monday helped crystallize the fact that however flawed it was, there was one option that was worse: not passing it.
    Consider the excuses offered:

• Republicans, two-thirds of whom voted “no,” pointed to an offensively partisan speech given by Speaker Nancy Pelosi just before the vote. Yes, the speech was abominable. That she would speak as she did at such a moment should cause the House to seek a new speaker after this crisis is over. But was that an excuse for anyone to vote against the bill? Absolutely not. Either the plan was the right thing for the country or not, no matter what she said.
• Members of both parties, their eyes on re-election just over a month away, heard the voters didn’t like the plan. Well, nobody likes the plan. But this was what negotiators had come up with, and there was bipartisan agreement that this plan or one very like it needed to pass quickly to prevent the nation’s financial infrastructure from a profound collapse — one that would hurt everyone, from Wall Street to Main Street. Such situations illustrate why we have a representative system of government. We elect people to study an issue far more deeply than the voters can and make a wise decision. Our system failed on Monday.
• The explanations of Rep. Gresham Barrett, the only member of the S.C. delegation to vote “no,” were empty. He said he wants to let markets work. Markets showed what they thought of that after his position prevailed. He then offered a cut in the capital gains tax — a fine idea perhaps, but one that in this context sounded like he had reached blindfolded into a bag of cliches and pulled out the first thing he touched.

    What now? Well, House leaders of both parties need to scramble over the Rosh Hashanah break to line up the votes they failed to corral on Monday.
    But that won’t address the leadership deficit.
    Whatever happens the next few days, either John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected president on Nov. 4, and the nation will turn to the winner for what is missing now. Sen. McCain took a bold shot at leadership last week, but fell flat. Sen. Obama had played it cool, but on Tuesday stepped up to back the need for a rescue unequivocally.
    These men have the nation’s attention. How they use that to address the nation’s leadership void in the coming days will decide more than the presidential election.

In fact, as long as I’m giving you more windows into the process than you want, here’s the very, very rough, stream-of-consciousness first draft of the column, before I even corrected typos or started organizing it so that someone else could make sense of it:

Who is leading the nation in this time of economic crisis? No one,
and that is what is most appalling about the House vote on the bailout
plan, and its aftermath.
The president can’t lead, and it seems
painfully obvious that he knows it. His brief televised comments to the
nation, during prime time last night and then again on Tuesday morning
after the House vote and the stock market freefall, are startling
unconvincing. Mr. Bush doesn’t even seem convinced himself.
The
failure of congressional leadership is particularly stark. After
“leaders” worked across party lines for several days, we were treated
to petty displays of childish partisanship before, during and after the
228-205 vote against the plan.
That was a clarifying moment. While
serious, sincere people had valid objections to the plan originally put
forward by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and there was much to
object to in the amended plan the negotiators had come up with, it’s
rejection on Monday helped crystallize that however flawed, however
painful, however ugly the result was, there was one option that was
worse: not passing it.
The excuses offered for why the bill failed were utterly unconvincing:
n
  Republicans, who have the most to answer for since two-thirds of them
voted “no,” have pointed collectively to an offensively partisan speech
given by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the moments before the vote. And true,
the speech was abominable, pure hyperpartisan boilerplate. That she
would speak as she did at such a moment should cause both parties to be
in the search for a new speaker after this particular crisis is over.
But was that an excuse for anyone to vote against the bill? Absolutely
not. Either the plan was the right thing for the country or not, no
matter what Ms. Pelosi said.
n     Members of both parties, their
eyes on re-election just over a month away, voted “no” because they
were hearing that the voters didn’t like the plan. Well, nobody likes
the plan. But this was the plan negotiators had come up with over the
last two weeks, and there was bipartisan agreement that this plan or
one very like it needed to pass quickly to prevent the nation’s
financial infrastructure from a profound collapse – one that would hurt
everyone, from Wall Street to Main Street, to invoke a populist
buzzphrase of the moment. This situation is a dramatic demonstration of
just why we have a representative system of government rather than a
pure democracy. We elect people to study an issue far more deeply than
the voters can and make a wise decision. In every case where a member
voted according to the polls Monday, that system failed.
n    The
ideological objections were especially empty. For that we have a poster
child, Rep. Gresham Barrett, the only member of the South Carolina
delegation to vote “no.” He says he wants to let markets work. Well,
they “worked” on Monday after his position prevailed in the House, with
the Dow suffering its largest one-day point drop in history. He then
offers as a solution a cut in the capital gains tax, which sounds for
all the world like reaching blindfolded into a bag of political cliches
and pulling out the first thing his fingers encountered.
What now?
Well, House leaders of both parties need to scramble over the Rosh
Hashanah break to line up the votes they failed to corral on Monday.
But
that won’t address the leadership deficit. Whatever happens the next
few days, either John McCain or Barack Obama will be elected president
on Nov. 4, and the nation will turn to the winner for what is missing
now. Unfortunately, neither has distinquished himself on this issue.
Sen. McCain has run about trying to forge a passable agreement without
success, then blamed Democrats for the failure. Sen. Obama has kept his
cool, but excessively so; he has not risked his campaign on the passage
of the plan.
There is something that these candidates can do that no
one else can. They have the nation’s attention. They should use it to
explain, together, what they agree upon – that this plan should pass.
If either one believes otherwise, he should explain why, offer his
alternative, and unequivocally stand behind it. In other words, they
should lead. Because no one else is doing so.

This is fairly typical of my writing process — first I overwrite, and then pare. What was unusual was that the concluding paragraph kept changing. Usually, I have a pretty good idea of what I want to say at the end, and sometimes even write that first. In this case, the thing that I wanted to make sure to do in the editorial was to express disgust with the failure of Congress, and describe the leadership vacuum. In our morning meeting we had spoken about adding the thought that this was a vacuum that McCain and Obama needed to step into more effectively than they had so far, but we had left it sor of fuzzy as to how we wanted to put that. (That’s unusual. More often, although certainly not always, we get into specific wording in our board discussions.) So I experimented with a couple or three different ways of saying it, complicated by the fact that Obama gave an important speech on the subject even as I was writing.

I know that’s way, way more than you wanted to know, but that’s part of what the blog’s for.

Well, this may seem to be making too much light of a bad situation today, but if anything, this is a better idea, however facetious, than it was when I thought of it over the weekend:

Let’s not pass a bailout plan, but tell Wall Street we did.

IF we could pull it off — a big "if" in this world of modern communications — it would work like a charm. We the taxpayers would save ourselves $700 billion, and the traders in New York would all calm down and start extending credit and buy shares in endangered institutions the way they used to, and the economy would chug right along.

Because it’s all about how those jumpy, hyperemotional, crazies on Wall Street FEEL, isn’t it? If they think stocks have value, they have value. Industries keep churning, commerce keeps moving, and all our 401k’s are saved.

A pretend bailout is actually better than a real bailout because it can be all things to all people. With a real plan, there are pesky details that people can pick apart, and you know they will. With my approach, somebody on Wall Street asks, "Does it have this or that in it?" and you say, "You bet!" Everybody’s covered, everybody’s happy.

My plan at least deserves consideration, especially since Washington can’t seem to come up with anything better. Or anything at all…

I’ve got a lot of thoughts about it, but I’m typing this laboriously on my Treo while listening to a panel of readers discuss it.

When this discussion is over, I’m heading home to crash. I’ll comment tomorrow when my braincells return.

But I didn’t want to hold y’all up. Have at it.

(One quick thought — I don’t think that debate changed many minds…)

Well, now we’ve seen everything. Here we have Barack Obama and John McCain meeting with President Bush and congressional leaders, just before the doors closed for the meeting.

As I said in a comment earlier, such collaboration is both a blessing and a curse. It’s great to see partisan differences set aside in a crisis. But on the other hand, if all
parties bless this deal, the voters are left without alternatives in this historic election: Either presidential candidate you vote for would have been a party to the bailout.

I’m sure there are loads of other considerations that neither you nor I nor Obama nor McCain, for that matter, have thought of. May we live in interesting times.

Here’s the latest from AP:

BC-Financial Meltdown,22nd Ld-Writethru/1056
Eds: UPDATES with Shelby saying no deal. Multimedia: An interactive on Wall Street’s financial meltdown, illustrating market conditions that led to the crisis, is in the _business/lehman_meltdown folder. Moving on general news and financial services. AP Video.
Tentative meltdown deal: Bush, McCain, Obama meet
By JENNIFER LOVEN and JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS
Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON (AP) _ President Bush and the two men fighting to succeed him joined forces at a historic White House meeting Thursday, trying to sell resistant lawmakers on a multibillion-dollar bailout plan for Wall Street aimed at staving off what the president called "a serious economic crisis." Key members of Congress struck a deal earlier in the day but others were unwilling.

The tentative accord would give the Bush administration just a fraction of the $700 billion it had requested up front, with half the money subject to a congressional veto, Capitol Hill aides said. Even that was hardly final. Sen. Richard Shelby, top Republican on the Banking Committee, emerged from the White House meeting and said, "I don’t believe we have an agreement."

Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, who have both sought to distance themselves from the unpopular Bush, sat down with the president at the White House for an hourlong afternoon session that was striking in this brutally partisan season and apparently without precedent. By also including Congress’ Democratic and Republican leaders, the meeting gathered nearly all Washington’s political power structure at one long table in a small West Wing room.

"All of us around the table … know we’ve got to get something done as quickly as possible," Bush told reporters, brought in for only the start of the meeting. Obama and McCain were at distant ends of the oval table, not even in each other’s sight lines. Bush, playing host in the middle, was flanked by Congress’ two Democratic leaders, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

No one else spoke before the cameras left.

Hours earlier, private talks on Capitol Hill ended with the announcement that an agreement in principle had been reached on a financial rescue package — though changed somewhat from the one the Bush administration proposed last weekend.

Under the plan agreed to by key lawmakers at the Capitol, the Treasury secretary would get $250 billion immediately and could have an additional $100 billion if he certified it was needed, congressional aides said. The last $350 billion could be blocked by a vote of Congress under the arrangement, designed to give lawmakers a stronger hand in controlling the unprecedented rescue.

There were signs that the conservative-leaning House Republican Caucus was not on board. Both of Congress’ Republican leaders, Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Mitch McConnell, issued statements saying there was not yet an agreement.

But Banking Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, among others, said negotiators from Congress and the administration had arrived at a deal that could win approval. Other key lawmakers said that after days of bare-knuckles negotiations there was little of note left to resolve.

Wall Street showed its pleasure cautiously. The Dow Jones industrials closed some 196 points higher, though that was down from larger gains earlier in the day.

The plan’s centerpiece is for the government to buy the toxic, mortgage-based assets of shaky financial institutions in a bid to keep them from going under and setting off a cascade of ruinous events, including wiped-out retirement savings, rising home foreclosures, closed businesses, and lost jobs.

The Bush administration has made concessions almost daily to demands from the right and the left from its original three-page proposal, including agreeing to limit pay for executives of bailed-out financial institutions and give taxpayers an equity stake in rescued companies.

The White House timed the extraordinary meeting to fit the candidates’ schedules — and to convene after the close of stock markets.

It was somewhat upstaged nearly three hours before various motorcades deposited the meeting participants and their entourages, when Capitol Hill leaders reported their deal. Despite the national prominence of Bush, McCain and Obama, none has been deeply involved in this week’s scramble to hammer out a package.

The developments on the Hill lent fresh and urgent purpose to the session: providing encouragement — and political cover — for lawmakers of both parties to accept a plan. It is expected to come up for votes in the House and Senate quickly, perhaps within days, so that lawmakers can adjourn to campaign for their own re-elections.

But any pitch by Bush, Obama and McCain would be no easy sell.

All lawmakers are returning to home districts packed with constituents angry that they are being asked to foot the bill to bail out Wall Street’s rich guys when they and their neighbors are suffering the effects of ballooning mortgages and tightening credit. This means Obama and even the increasingly marginalized Bush could have sway with their joint resolve.

McCain, in particular, was being leaned on by Democrats and fellow Republicans alike to deliver GOP votes, as some conservatives are in open revolt over the astonishing price tag of the proposal and the heavy hand of government that it would place on private markets. Placating them enough to bring them in line could be a tall order for the Republican presidential nominee who has a checkered relationship with the right wing of his party.

A group of GOP lawmakers circulated a less government-focused alternative. Their proposal would have the government provide insurance to companies that agree to hold frozen assets, rather than have the government purchase the assets. Rep Eric Cantor, R-Va., said the idea would be to remove the burden of the bailout from taxpayers and place it, over time, on Wall Street instead.

Layered over the White House meeting was a complicated web of potential political benefits and consequences for both Obama and McCain.

McCain hoped voters would believe that he rose above politics to wade into successful, nitty-gritty dealmaking at a time of urgent crisis, but he risked being seen instead as either overly impulsive or politically craven, or both. Obama saw a chance to appear presidential and fit for duty, but was also caught off guard strategically by McCain’s surprising gamble in saying he was suspending his campaigning and asking to delay Friday night’s debate to focus on the crisis.

This morning I read and hear that Paulson and Bernanke say we’d better do everything they say, or else we might have a … drumroll here … recession!

So I’m like, What! A recession! You’ve been scaring me all week, and that’s all you’ve got?!?!?

I’d be relieved, but I’m too peeved at having gotten so worked up. I mean, Robert Samuelson, who never exaggerates anything, wrote last week that "Wall Street as we know it is kaput." The Wall Street Journal had this headline on its front page: "Worst Crisis Since ’30s, With No End Yet in Sight." Yesterday, the lead editorial in the Journal was headlined, "The End of Wall Street."

You people had me convinced that if the gummint didn’t take over, if I and the guy down the street didn’t pony up $700 billion, our heads were all going to explode or something.

And now you say, "recession," like that’s supposed to scare me? Don’t we have recessions all the freaking time? Didn’t we have one like last week or something?

I mean, this is like some crack-high, gang-banging raving lunatic robber waving a MAC-10 at me for an hour, and then, once I’m thoroughly convinced that I’d better hand over all my money, he says, "… and if you don’t give me your wallet right now, I’ll say rude things to you!"

Run along, son, you bother me…

Well, I did a really cheesy thing yesterday, something that I’ve turned my nose up when I’ve seen TV people do it my whole career: I asked a source to re-enact a moment for the camera.

Go ahead, throw your rotten tomatoes — I deserve it.

All done now?

Here’s what happened: During our interview yesterday, Michael Koska said several interesting things about the effect he things Sarahmania is likely to have on down-ballot races such as his. He said it while I was using my camera to get some still shots of him. By the time the camera had stopped storing the series of pics I had just shot, and let me switch to video, he had moved on.

So I asked him to say it again. Being a nice guy, he went along. At least, in the interest of honesty (not to mention the unities of cinema verite), I kept in the part when I’m coaching him to say it again.

Another bad thing about this — something that’s really cheesy — is that talking about partisan considerations is so not Michael Koska. Apart from mentioning that a Republican might be able to get more done in a GOP-dominated Legislature than a Democrat could, he made no other mentions of party. So it’s a little nonrepresentative to call so much attention to this one tidbit.

But I’ll say two things in my defense:

1. I did NOT choose this as the video to go with my actual report to you on the interview, but instead provided footage that went much more to the heart of his message.
2. This Sarah Palin stuff was just plain interesting, particularly coming from such an otherwise post-partisan kind of guy.

Anyway,  make of it what you will.

Mayor Bob Coble sent this at 7:55 a.m., but I just got to it:

Safety and Security Ordinance is needed

     I wanted to respond to your Friday editorial, “High-crime areas should draw more police protection.” Your editorial says “when crime escalates to the point it becomes ‘an unacceptable risk to public safety’ — whether at an apartment complex or in an historic neighborhood — residents should be able to expect swift, intense police intervention. But under a proposal by Columbia Mayor Bob Coble, if you live in an apartment complex beset with crime, you would have to depend on your landlord.” That statement is both untrue and misleading. A more accurate description of the Safety and Security Ordinance I have proposed would be, “if you live in an apartment complex, owned by an absentee landlord and funded by the federal government, that consistently rents to drug dealers and other criminals, and the Columbia Police and Richland County Sheriff Deputies are constantly coming to the same apartments time and time again, and the level of crime on the private property owned by your absentee landlord exceeds one percent of total major crime in the City, then your absentee landlord has a responsibility to be part of the solution.”
The City of Columbia recently did a gang assessment that was conducted by the University of South Carolina and Benedict College.  That study demonstrated that a great deal of the drug and gang activity as well as domestic violence and violent crime are clustered in several large, federally funded, apartment complexes in Columbia.  The State did a series of articles about North Columbia and reported the same findings.  These apartments receive hundreds of thousands of federal dollars through project based Section 8 vouchers, federal tax credits for low income housing, or individual Section 8 vouchers. The federal government, since it provides subsidies for housing in these complexes, should require security just as it has structural safety requirements-but the federal government does not. The residents of these complexes are the victims of these crimes.  They deserve the same level of safety as every other citizen. 
The requirements of our Safety and Security Ordinance would start if an apartment complex was the source of one percent of major crime in the City. A safety and security plan is not a substitute for the police. The apartment owner can do things the police cannot: enforce lease provisions against renting to those convicted of drug crimes, enforce rules of the apartment established by the property owner such as a curfew; and screen persons for trespassing more effectively.  It’s not appropriate for city police to stay in one apartment complex 24 hours a day and act as private security, at the neglect of nearby areas. 
    Gable Oaks is an example of success. The former owner hired private guards and instituted other measures earlier this year that transformed one of the city’s toughest housing complexes into a safe community.  The City Police and the Richland County Sheriff worked in partnership with Gable Oaks to produce this safer community.  The City, of course, has the obligation to provide protection for our citizens.  A Safety and Security Ordinance is part of a larger strategy to fight crime in Columbia. Chief Tandy Carter is preparing his comprehensive plan for the Police Department. This year’s City budget that was adopted in June included monies for our pay and retention plan for both police and firefighters that will total $2.5 million phased over three years. Additionally, this year’s budget includes funding for 14 additional officers with seven added in this fiscal year and seven in the next. The City is implementing a security camera system, our Gang Initiative, as well as our Criminal Domestic Violence Task Force.  A Safety and Security Ordinance should be part of that strategy.

                            Mayor Bob Coble

Early Saturday morning, I ran into David Stanton of WIS at the Lizard’s Thicket on Sunset in W. Cola. He was having oatmeal, for those who want details.

Anyway, he asked a question I had heard frequently during the last few weeks, "Are you going to the conventions?" (Actually, when you hear it from partisans, the say "convention," singular, because they think there’s only one.)

And the answer was a sad, "No." I had been tentatively planning to go as recently as about three weeks ago. My publisher, in spite of all our cutbacks, had repeatedly expressed the willingness to pay for it (despite the fact that plans to get ad sponsors for the blog to pay for the venture apparently didn’t materialize), but in the end I had to say "no, thanks," mainly because I just couldn’t face Warren and Cindi and tell them I was going to go off and have fun and leave them to figure out how to carry on without Mike or me, either (we’re still in transition on that; we’re getting some more part-time help from the newsroom starting this week, in fact). I had felt bad enough spending those few much-needed days at the beach.

The thing about conventions is that they can be such a blast, but have little immediate, obvious return. The long-term return is huge, because hanging out all hours with the political leadership of your state for a week is sort of like going to summer camp with some of your best (and worst) sources. You just learn an awful lot more about them, and that knowledge pays off. But you don’t find a whole lot of really meaningly stuff to write about in the short term. Conventions are VERY short on substance.

The reason I wanted to go — and had looked forward to going ever since I went to New York in 2004 (I let Mike have Boston that year) — was the blogging opportunity. In 2004, I found things I wanted to write about 20 times a day, although very little that was column-worthy. Just lots of fascinating little tidbits. It was the frustration of having all those urges to write, and having reserved only three column slots that week, that first planted the idea of blogging in my head. I started this blog a few months later, and spent the next four years looking forward to the ultimate blogging opportunity, the 2008 conventions.

But I’m the editor; I’m not supposed to have that much fun. I didn’t go. Ah, well. Maybe next time.

Oh, by the way, back to David Stanton. I said, "No. And you?" Nope. In fact, I don’t think anybody from his station went. He and I agreed that we weren’t missing much of substance, just some good blogging. Sour grapes.

Meanwhile, The State has two people from our newsroom at the convention. Just not me. I know I made the right decision. Maybe at some point in the future it will feel like it.

Last week, ex-Rep. Charlie Stenholm came to see me on behalf of Big Oil, pushing new drilling. Since he accepts the Energy Party principle of Doing Everything — increased production AND conservation AND alternative fuels AND anything else that will move us toward energy independence — he found a receptive audience.

But that’s not what I remember a week later. I was more intrigued by what he had to say about Blue Dogs. Mr. Stenholm, in case you didn’t know, was on of the Democrats tossed out of office by Tom DeLay’s gerrymandering of Texas. Anyway, he made three interesting points:

1. Moderate Democrats are likely to have more influence over their party and the nation, not less, after the upcoming election.
2. Blue Dogs today face a very different situation from the Boll Weevils he helped lead in his early days in Congress, largely because…
3. George W. Bush has been an impossible man to work with, Blue Dog or not — a fact that surprised him, since he had worked well with Mr. Bush when he was governor of Texas.

Finally, somebody’s out there to stick up for ME, and who better than the Governator?

Hello,

Families and the private sector are the main actors in online safety.  But government has an important role to play as well.  Government can make it easier for families and others to purchase the right technological tools, as well as help educate people of all ages about how to protect themselves online.  Government is also the only entity that can hold people accountable when they cross certain lines.

Cyberbullying is one of those lines.

State governments are beginning to address this threatening behavior.  The California legislature recently passed Assembly Bill 86.  The legislation authorizes school officials to suspend or recommend for expulsion students who engage in harassment using electronic devices.  Most important, it includes electronic messages that originate off school grounds.  It is perhaps the strongest legislation of its kind in the country.

The cyberbullying bill now awaits signature by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Schwarzenegger has refused to sign any bill until the California state government passes a budget….

Wait! You say Ah-nold won’t stick up for me? Oh, whatever shall I do with all these Cyberbullies who come to my blog just to be mean to me?!?!?

Yes, I know that many kids today confuse their online lives with real life, sometimes with horrible consequences. And hanging is too good for any adult who uses any opportunity to be cruel to a child (just as slapping is too good for kids who do the same). But sometimes I look at stuff like this — virtual bullying? — and I think maybe David Brooks was right the other day when, after seeing the stoic way that the Chinese move on in the face of devastating personal disasters, "you do wonder if we Americans are a nation of whiners."

Following up on my last post, I just ran across this photo from The Associated Press. AP’s caption reads as follows:

Ossetian soldiers on top of a tank enter Tskhinvali, the capital of Georgian breakaway enclave of South Ossetia on Monday, Aug. 11, 2008, next to a giant portrait of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and inscription in Cyrillic: Putin is our President. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to military action in Georgia on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)

Note again: The sign is located inside Georgia. It says "Putin is our President."

You know, Vladimir Putin — the guy who, in theory, isn’t even the president of Russia any more.

By the way, the picture below is of him presiding over the crushing of Georgia from Moscow.

"Who are your influences?" Jimmy Rabbitte asked the prospective Commitments.

Well, mine are legion. But one of the major influences that caused me to start a blog was Dan Gillmor. He made a pitch at the last-ever meeting of Knight Ridder editorial page editors about the virtues of blogging, back in January 2005. Four months later, this blog was up and running, in spite of the fact that there was no way to accomplish one of his prerequisites to maintaining a blog: "First, you’ll need more FTE’s." We all refrained from laughing at that, because it wasn’t funny. As you know, we have had to do with fewer and fewer people here at the newspaper since then. But I blog anyway, because I made the mistake of starting it, and I’m obsessive.

A digression, if you don’t mind (and if you do mind, tough; the one great reward of blogging for me is that it provides an unlimited outlet for my penchant for digression): Why was that the last KR EPE meeting? Well, there never was much point in editorial page editors gathering. KR publishers (and now, McClatchy publishers) had and have all sort of reasons to gather or engage in conference calls, because they’re all part of one big business enterprise. But the corporation’s policy with regard to editorial pages is that they were independent and not to be influenced by corporate. KR would occasionally get us together anyway, in some vague hope that we would voluntarily trade good ideas or something. They didn’t do it often (the 2005 meeting was the first in five years), but they did it. Actually, that last meeting was the only one in which Tony Ridder sort of broke the rule: He spoke to the group, and had a researcher make a presentation, in an effort to persuade us not to endorse in presidential elections. His points were that it was a distraction from our main mandate, which was local issues, and all it did was make readers mad at us. The assembled editors rather pointedly ignored his advice.

Anyway, back to Dan Gillmor. He popped up last week in the form of a quotation sent to me by a reader, saying various smart things about the future of newspapers and related platforms. Here’s part of what he said:

    (E)xpand the conversation with the community in the one place where it’s already
taking place: the editorial pages. Invert them. Make the printed pages the
best-of and guide to a conversation the community can and should be having with
itself. The paper can’t set the agenda, at least not by itself (nor should it),
but it can highlight what people care about and help the community have a
conversation that is civil and useful.

Increasingly, I find that I engage in the very inversion that he recommends. I write a lot of stuff on my blog, we have all sorts of discussions about it, and I end up plucking something from the blog and turning it into my column for the paper. This week, my Sunday column will be, almost word-for-word, this blog post inspired by a Robert Samuelson column.

When we newspaper types first ventured into the online world, we basically took what we had already put into the paper and then posted it on the Web. To a great extent we still do that, although you’ll see more and more breaking news that hasn’t been in the paper, plus video and other multimedia extras.

But increasingly for me, the paper is a place where highlights from my blog appear. That doesn’t make the blog more important than the editorial page, far from it. I still have far more readers in print (although my online readership is broader geographically, and increasingly when I hear from national media, it’s as a blogger, not a newspaper editor), and the blog is still sort of like New Haven is to Broadway — a place to try out ideas before putting them on the bigger stage.

But the evolution continues.

Still making my way through the messages from last week, I run across this one from Mayor Bob that relates to my previous post about the Saluda Latrine, I mean, River:

Based on the news reports of the last day about the sewer spill in Saluda River, I think it may be time to call for a Saluda, Broad, and Congaree Rivers Summit. I know that there are a lot of environmental groups, DHEC and other governments working to reduce discharges into the rivers. City Council approved a partnership with DHEC earlier this month on July 9th to address the high levels of fecal coliform in the Congaree River. We met with David Wilson, Water Bureau Chief; David Baize, and Charles Gorman of DHEC on July 1st to get a game plan. The causes of the high level of bacteria include run-off, septic tank leakage, sewer spills and pet waste. City staff has or will shortly send a letter to DHEC requesting a partnership with DHEC for the Total Maximum Daily Loading Plan for the Congaree River.

I think the spill this week caused by a malfunction with Alpine Utilities is a good reason for the City to ask everyone working on this issue to brief City Council on what we are doing and how the City can help. I know there is a plan that DHEC is working on as well as The Lower Saluda River Corridor Plan. I would ask staff to set this meeting up as soon as practical. I will ask Julie to coordinate with the City Manager and John Dooley. Also, I have asked former Commissioner Doug Bryant for his advice and am copying him.

Obviously, with the recreational and residential boom along the rivers, sewer and bacteria warnings and accidents can be devastating to our efforts as well as the environment. Just for background, I am attaching below exactly what we are asking DHEC to do based on our July 9th action. Thanks

CITY OF COLUMBIA:

* Requested DHEC accelerate the schedule for the development of fecal coliform Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) in local water bodies. This effort should encompass the impaired water bodies (lower Saluda, lower Broad downstream from Columbia Canal, and Gills Creek watershed areas) within and near the City.

* Expressed interest in working collaboratively with DHEC and other entities in developing such a TMDL(s) that will serve as a comprehensive tool and a road map to improve and restore impaired water bodies in and near the City.

* Offered assistance to DHEC for this effort as deemed necessary and appropriate by DHEC.

Joe Wilson just sent out this release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 9, 2008

Wilson: “House Republicans will continue to fight for an all-of-the-above energy plan.”
*To View a Video of Congressman Wilson’s Floor Speech Click Here*
WASHINGTON – Congressman Joe Wilson (SC-02) delivered the following remarks today on the floor of the House of Representatives.

    “Mr. Speaker, here are a few facts on energy I would like to share:

• America currently has an estimated 175 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.1 trillion barrels of oil that is off-limits to exploration.
• In ANWR alone, there is an estimated 10.4 billion barrels of oil.
• Currently, 85 percent of the Lower 48 Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) energy resources remain under the lock and key of the federal government.
• Only 6 percent of the 700 million acres of federally owned sub-surface mineral estate has been leased for oil and gas exploration.
• The estimated federal revenue that would be generated by opening up these lands that are currently off-limits to leasing is upwards of $60 trillion.

    “Americans support exploring for these resources and breaking America’s dependence on foreign oil.
    “The American people are demanding Congress take action.  That is why House Republicans will continue to fight for an all-of-the-above energy plan that will produce more American-made energy while investing in alternative fuels and promoting conservation.
    “In conclusion, God bless our troops, and we will never forget September 11th.”

            ###

As usual, Joe is playing the Party Game. His "all-of-the-above" plan has only one item: Drill. Standard GOP boilerplate.

By contrast, the Energy Party has a real "all of the above" plan. Drilling is only a small piece of the solution, folks.
 

FYI, the movie referred to in my Sunday column is the cheesily named "…tick…tick…tick…," starring former NFL great Jim Brown (as the sheriff) and George Kennedy.

At least, I think that’s the movie I was thinking of. My slight uncertainty on that point kept me from naming it in the column.

My intention had been to get a copy of it and double-check the quotation that was my reason for bringing it up. Unfortunately, it is sufficiently forgotten and obscure that Netflix apparently never heard of it. I searched under the title, under George Kennedy and under Jim Brown, with no success. I even searched under "Fredric March," since I had learned from Wikipedia that that was his penultimate screen appearance. Nope.

So it is that in the column, and had to fudge the quotation by saying "Or something like that." The point is that (even if I’m remembering it all wrong), it was the first time I remember the phrase "good old boy" being used in popular culture. That would still be true — that I remember it that way — even if my memory is mistaken.

If it is mistaken, and you can prove it, I’d appreciate your pointing it out. Really. I’ll publish a correction and everything.

Oh, and for those of you who are really into trivia, this movie was made in 1970, which was three years after the two stars had appeared together in "The Dirty Dozen," which it just so happens I was watching on DVD the other night. Will wonders never cease?

1967 was a big year for George Kennedy. His part in "The Dirty Dozen" may have been small, but that’s also the year that he created "Dragline," for which he will always be best remembered.