It's looked pretty clear throughout this standoff that the lame-duck Republican caucus will block any effort to help Detroit because they are hoping to see the big three go into chapter 11. The GOP has always yearned to break the unions; here's their chance. So what if the resulting disarray and demoralization drives the Main Street economy deeper into the ditch? More of a mess for Obama and the new Dem majorities to clean up.

So the question is really just, can Detroit hang on another 9 weeks or so? Or are the carmakers hurting so bad that this is just enough time for them to go under?

Lovely explanation, Andrew. One point to add:

But let's suppose you are not underwater on your mortgage, you don't have any credit card debt, you're gainfully employed, and you are staring at a $499 price tag for a 32-inch flat screen HDTV from Sony?

The thing is, the people who are not underwater on their mortgage, don't have any credit card debt, and are gainfully employed -- I write as someone who meets criteria #1 and #2 and, sorta, #3 (self-employed) -- are very often people who got that way because they don't spend their time staring at $499 price tags for things they don't need. I'm not saying financially prudent people are angels; just that prudence begats prudence.

As you say, today the prudent will not make stupid purchases and the profligate no longer have the cash to make stupid purchases (and can't get credit). The trick is to figure out how to grow the economy again without anyone having to go back to being stupid. Which will require a different system from the one we have had.

I've always shared the "don't just kneejerk against biotech" stance you articulate. But my eyes opened a bit after I read Denise Caruso's book and interviewed her

http://www.salon.com/books/int/2007/03/12/caruso/index.html

Caruso knows her stuff and is not a knee-jerker. The problem is we're rushing into biotech with no serious assessment of risk. Hey, we did that with derivatives and it worked fine, right?

Not sure I see that there is likely to be any big showdown in Congress. There may be some holdouts here and there who insist that we actually find a way to pay for all the spending (raise taxes? cut somewhere else?) but I can't see that being a widely held position in Congress: has it ever been?

This bill will be so full of goodies for everyone that it should be able to pick up a majority. There've gotta be 2-3 GOP Senators who will come along for the ride based on fat local contracts in their states, which shouldn't be hard to provide. And that's ultimately all the Dems need, right?

Hey, Joan -- great piece. I wish every pundit in the country would go back over his/her year and conduct a similarly searching self-analysis.

I never quite understood the gauzy picture of Obama the progressive savior. Sure he represented "change," but so would any Democrat. From where I sat, all that mattered was: end the madness. Find the candidate who could best beat the Bush team and its successors. And Iowa made crystal clear to me that Clinton didn't have as good a chance as Obama. Not because I disagreed with her on the issues but because she should have won. She was in the lead and she lost it. If she let that happen in Iowa it could happen anywhere. And I couldn't bear to see that happen in the fall.

The big issues between Clinton and Obama were fought out on the battlefield of gender and race and class, and you analyzed those thoughtfully, but to me, the bottom line -- since I'd have been happy with either of them as president -- was competence and campaign savvy. And Obama just had Hillary beat on that score. Her campaign was too often a leaky, fractious train wreck. His was tight, smart, and always focused on what counted: delegates.

We needed a Democratic candidate who could count delegates and, later, electoral votes. Why hadn't Hillary done so? Was it her fault? Mark Penn's? Who knows. But her failure to do so was what told me, early on, that Obama was the Democrats' best shot. He had the strategy, the organization, and the ability to keep his (and his campaign's) gaze on what mattered, through all the distractions and craziness of the campaign season.

My point is: There were some of us who backed Obama early on, not because we were dazzled by him or infatuated with his image, but for essentially pragmatic reasons. We thought he was most likeliest to win. Would Hillary have whipped McCain? Probably. I hope so. But during those low moments in late August when the GOP's numbers spiked, I felt glad that it was Obama, Axelrod and company steering the ship.

The COPA saga extends deep into Salon's past. It's astonishing that the law still had some life in it. And a relief to know that our long legal nightmare is finally over.

COPA was the coda (!) to the Communications Decency Act wars of the mid-'90s, but unlike the CDA it became like a zombie undead piece of legislation, the Law That Would Not Die. It is somehow fitting to have received this news on this day of so many other momentous changes...