How’s That Bailout Vote Looking Now?
“Who are our real friends? And haven’t they all got The Bends?”
So sang Radiohead front man Thom Yorke (in the year of the first aborted “Republican Revolution,” ironically), and so sing conservatives today as the party that was supposed to represent their fiscal values drifts even deeper into political irrelevancy for having 100% abandoned them.
So who are our real friends? And does anybody claiming the GOP mantle not have “The Bends?”
Interestingly enough, one name still sticks in our minds as we look at all the Washington Republicans who tucked their free market tails between their legs and went scurrying for the cozy “we’ve got to do something” cover of George W. Bailout’s $700 billion boondoggle (which of course is just part of $2.3 trillion we’ve dumped into “our economy” over the past few months).
That name? Gresham Barrett.
We figured that left-leaning, glad-handing “Republicans” like Henry Brown, Joe Wilson and Lindsey Graham would suck up to the unprecedented, unaccountable socialist interventionism being foisted on the American taxpayers (which they tripped over themselves to do), but we never thought Barrett would fall for it.
Sadly, he did … and now it appears he’s regretting that decision, or at the very least working to give the appearance that he’s regretting part of it.
From Gresham’s hometown paper, UpstateToday.com, we read:
“I’m in favor of going back and tightening up some of the requirements of how they’re going to use this money and how they’re going to report this stuff,” Barrett said of a perceived lack of transparency to the bailout.
“It looks to me like a lot of these moneys are going to places not where the intent was,” Barrett said. “We gave them some flexibility, and there were clear intentions as to what Congress wanted this to be used for and how it was supposed to be used.”
Ironically, Barrett’s first tepid steps toward acknowledging the truth in what we said was going to happen all along came on the same day Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson radically revisited his original plan for purchasing hundreds of billions in “troubled assets.”
Which as far as we can tell is an admission that the first $350 billion may have not been as wisely invested as we were led to believe it would be. Yeah … shocker.
Just as ironically, perhaps, Barrett’s potential pre-mea culpa comes one week after his re-election and two months before he’ll have to start his 2010 gubernatorial campaign in earnest.
In other words, it comes at the most convenient time for him politically, which also happens to be the least convenient time for us as taxpayers.
Seriously, dude. We told you so.
This bailout has succeeded in accomplishing only one thing – a headlong rush for additional bailouts.
It hasn’t slowed, stopped or in any way mitigated America’s economic free fall, and Barrett coming around now (on the back end) and saying that he has problems with its accountability provisions is like the assassin who just blew your head off trying to straighten out your necktie.
In other words, “thanks a lot.”
“Phew, for a minute there …”
Anyway … we sincerely hope that Barrett has learned his lesson from this experience.
And we sincerely hope the vulnerability this colossal brain fart has opened on his right flank will force him to campaign on a much more fiscally conservative platform – one that doesn’t cater to the Bobby Harrell crowd (i.e. the Darla Moore crowd) but instead focuses on actually putting some money into taxpayers’ pockets for a change.
He’s an earnest guy, and of the practically-announced candidates for governor of South Carolina, he’s still got the best conservative credentials … at this point.
Comments
By Well Said on November 13th, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Well Said Sic Willie. Gresham may have had a slip but he has true integrity and intelligence. He is also energetic and vibriant enough to help reshape the state Republican Party.
He will surely face tough competition Bauer’s WSPA interview today confirms he is Gov or bust. (Unless District 5 lures him). McMaster is formitable as well.
On a separate subject Willie, please tell us you plan to comment on Dawson’s (so-far-unannounced) bid for the RNC chair. Do you think he has shown that he has what it takes to lead the Republican party and the conservative movement back on track???? Don’t keep us waiting…
By Katherine Jenerette on November 13th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
The bail-out concept is trickle-down welfare and was worse than a bad idea, it was plain dumb. For free-market economic big-wig players to stick out their tin-cups to the government and the tax payers and expect a ‘free lunch hand-out’ because of their own incompetence is borderline socialism. We won’t have a free market for very long if we keep screwing with it the way Congress has with the bail-out. Trickle-down welfare just adds another level of government intrusion that only results in more federal dependency.
By mijeel on November 13th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
Although he may have the “best conservative credentials…at this point,” Barrett, just like Inglis, revealed that he is, at the end of the day, just another politician without the testicular fortitude be a leader and do what is right. Even though most aren’t clairvoyant, professional economists, Rhodes Scholars, or elected officials with access to ALL the information, over 90% of the American people were smart enough to know that voting for the “bail out” bill was the wrong answer.
Barrett, like Inglis, could have safely voted against the bill (though it would have had no impact on the outcome) and would have been a hero in the minds of his constituents.
It seems to me that Barrett’s current “regret” is nothing but more of the same manuevering to support his next political goal.
Barrett may have so-called conservative credentials. I’m looking for a leader whose conservative credentials are based on actually adhering to the core values of conservatism!
By JJ on November 14th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Katherine: you may want to try for a bailout for your old house that you no longer have. Might as well take advantage of the system.