If Obama jumps in and tries to save the deal, this would backfire for two reasons. First off, the Republicans would all bail, painting a large "D" label on a bill that is hated by the public (letters to Congress are running 100 to 1 against). Second, despite the appearance of being a Democratic bill, it would retain the structure of Paulson's proposal, slightly cleaned up, and would still be a giveaway to Wall Street.

Instead, a much smaller bill should be passed, providing a pool of money to get us through the next couple of months, leaving President Obama in position to shape the ultimate rescue bill without the requirement of producing a bill that George Bush will sign. The Dems should then promise to work on a new bill that will focus on Main Street instead of Wall Street. If the problem is bad mortgage loans, restructure those mortgages directly. Renegotiate them so that people can pay. The loans will then be worth less, but we can put a floor on their value and stop the panic.

It was Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's chief strategist, who was the first to talk about the role of "soccer moms" in politics, and how got everyone using this style of analysis. His book "Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes" was all about slicing and dicing the electorate into little groups, but by then he had dumped soccer moms and was talking about the importance of "active grannies".

Despite the laws against it, there's a strong prejudice in the industry against software developers over the age of 40. A lot of these guys are going to be thinking about hair dye, hair transplants and the like in this economy.

... it's important to elect more women into the Senate, and as governors.

If I counted right, we currently have eight female governors and 16 female senators (in each case, 16%). Those numbers have to come up.

Had the Palins done as they said they would do at first (fully cooperate with the investigation), they would have had no problem. It appears that they had legitimate reason to go after this rogue cop and former in-law, and had they been private citizens, their obsession with him, the hiring of private detectives, and a full-scall effort to get the guy off the police force would have been entirely appropriate.

But where they got into trouble was the mixing of political power with personal business, then lying about it (making up blatantly fake reasons for firing Monahan), and stonewalling the investigation.

Had they fully cooperated, it would have been all over months ago.

... for all the Herbert Hoover clones jumping in to debate this article. That's what I'm most scared of, particularly the Blue Dog Democrats who have lately decided to be budget hawks.

Of course, that doesn't mean that money should be wasted: we should spend to repair America's infrastructure and to build new infrastructure that we vitally need. Any pair of cities under 400 miles apart that get a lot of plane travel back and forth should be connected by a high-speed rail link. Every bridge that's overdue for maintenance should be repaired. Public buildings in earthquake or flood zones should be made safe. There's no shortage of needed work to be done.

... the Hooverites appeared, on schedule.

Insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting a different result. If you respond to a crushing bear market the way Hoover did (by letting government spending contract to match greatly reduced tax revenues, and fiddle a bit at the margins) you get the same result: a decline that goes on for years and gets worse.

The important thing is that any increased spending needs to be a real investment. We don't need bridges to nowhere, but our heavily used bridges to somewhere are falling down. Spending should fund the projects that we know we need.

The system that Nixon was forced to abandon (he didn't really have a choice, as it was collapsing) was hopelessly broken. It declared that dollars could be redeemed for gold at $35 per troy ounce, but to make that at all workable, Americans were forbidden to own gold, or to redeem dollars for gold; only central banks could do this, and gold bullion was practically treated like a controlled substance, kept in vaults by national governments. Black market trading in gold broke it; the price simply could not be sustained.

If you go further back, the gold standard was a bit more realistic, but it meant that a gold rush caused massive inflation, and the end of a gold rush caused massive deflation and financial panics as money dried up. If you suddenly have ten times as much gold floating around, and gold equals money and nothing else does, expect some wild rides.

Since gold is not the only valuable substance in the world, no declaration that a dollar is worth exactly some amount of gold would be sustainable. Gold's a commodity; like all commodities, its price bounces around wildly.

Paul recognizes that "fiat money" has a whiff of fakery about it; his mistake is believing that it can be any other way.

On all matters of foreign policy or domestic security, Lieberman votes with the Republicans. On the domestic policy issues where Lieberman does vote as a progressive, he's unlikely to change his vote and there are Republicans who can be peeled off. He's not going to join a Republican filibuster against an Obama pro-choice Supreme Court nominee.

Reid needs to consult with the shade of a former Majority Leader who was actually effective, LBJ. If you crossed LBJ, you paid a price; if you cross Reid, nothing happens. The result is that everyone sees Reid as what he is, a weak-kneed, inconsequential figure.

Lieberman needs to pay a price. In particular, he needs to lose his committee chairmanship.