If banks have to be talked into participating, then why is a bailout needed at all? And why are we mucking around with trying to keep the banks going instead of just biting the bullet and nationalizing them?

And is it just me who gets the impression that Goldman Sachs gets to run the Treasury Department? That's the first bank we should break up.

How much worse would this have been if Gregg was confirmed, and then there were irreconcilable issues. What if the census were moved after Gregg was in, and then he resigned. The fact is this will be forgotten in a short time. Republicans will try to pretend it was another tax issue, as I gather from prior comments. Long term though, we'll almost surely be better off with a different commerce secretary. If Gregg is still leaving the Senate, we might get a more moderate Republican, and likely an open seat for 2010 instead of trying to beat an incumbent.

And I can't help noticing that the problematic appointees are the ones liberals are least enthused about. A lot of us had concerns about the corruption stories in New Mexico, we disliked Daschle's industry ties before knowing about the taxes, and there was ideological discomfort with Gregg.

I suggest Robert Reich for commerce secretary.

We've seen what happens when government programs are run by conservatives who disagree with their existence.

Just responding to the phrase "hate in the Heartland", I'd like to point out that Obama won Minnesota by a healthy margin. That shouldn't be a big deal since the Democrat has won every election since we screwed up once and voted for Nixon in 1972.

Obama won Wisconsin by a big margin too.

Obama won Iowa by a big margin.

Same for Illinois. And Michigan.

You get my point. I just don't want to be lumped in with the remaining Republican base. Let's be precise, so that we might continue on offense and go after Republicans where they remain, otherwise they'll go on offense and before we know it, California's in doubt. The Republicans have been reduced to essentially the Southeast, the Great Plains, and the Mountain West; and not even all of those. They hold most rural areas, but they're not unassailable. In the aforementioned Heartland states, they've lost almost all rural House seats. We CAN win rural areas, which means we CAN go after the remaining rural areas. If that requires showing more understanding of conservatives than they've shown towards liberals, so be it.

Before blaming liberalism for California's problems, you might want to look more closely. The conservatives' darling proposition 13 required 2/3 of each house of the legislature to approve a tax increase. The state's Republicans have refused to raise taxes even with the government in danger of default. Conservative taxophobia is the cause of California's problems, just like in other states.

We don't have to really want the Fairness Doctrine. We just have to make the talk radio right think we do. They'll spend enormous amounts of time on it. It helps if there are a few people to say they want it back, but even if, once in a while, we say, "we don't really need the Fairness Doctrine," they'll spend a bunch of time discussing if we mean it. Meanwhile, we can be really concerned about media consolidation.

I don't really think we need the Fairness Doctrine. Really.

I understand the reluctance to help people who bought houses they shouldn't have at the expense of people who kept renting or bought a more appropriately priced, etc. However, people who kept current on their mortgages find their property values drop when there are foreclosed or vacant houses in the immediate area. They may be unable to sell their houses for a reasonable price or at all. The loss to the property tax base means remaining property owners have to pay higher rates or see services cut. That's a long way of saying there are victims other than the former owners of foreclosed houses, and those are people who did things right and did nothing to bring about the problem.

Let's also keep in mind that many troubled mortgages belong to people who tried to do things right, but lost their jobs in the recession. Most personal bankruptcies involve medical bills, and bankruptcy usually involves the loss of the house. They aren't all people who bought houses they couldn't afford. So as much as no one likes helping irresponsible people, as much as the plan tries to avoid doing so, it's inevitable some irresponsible people will get help, but we'll all be better off ultimately. In fact, I suspect this plan might do more good than TARP.

Congress has it's own right to arrest someone for contempt of Congress, and there's a long disused cell in the capitol. This is indeed a divide between branches, and Congress needs to assert itself. Obama could resolve it by deciding presidents have no executive privilege once they leave office, and that he doesn't exercise his in this case. That would remove the protection from Bush's miscreants. If that doesn't work for legal reasons or Obama won't do it, Congress should assert its power and jail them.

Perle and his co-conspirators may suggest NOW that staying was a mistake, but their project was to rebuild Iraq as free-market paradise. Besides, there was no government to take over when Saddam was removed. There was no plan to build one. With Saddam in box thanks to sanctions and foreign troops on his border, it was a matter of time before he died or got overthrown, and the Iraqis replaced him their own way. We can't pick other people's governments.

So let them push the fairness doctrine. If they're going to nurture their delusions, it's better they repeatedly try to ban this than push for voter ID.