there is a congressman Moran, but Senator?

This bill will now be praised for the "flexibility" it provides the executive. See, Paulson was able to make the right decision thanks to the flexibility the Congress gave him. Of course, he also could've made the wrong decision thanks to that same flexibility (but it would've been awful for Congress to take away this flexibility and have forced Paulson to do the right thing, how very rigid of them?). At the time of the bill's passage, Paulson's stated aim was to make the wrong decision and buy the shitpile troubled assets. So, it seems to me, that if Paulson does the right thing here the person to be praised is Paulson and not the Congress since they were perfectly willing to empower him to do the wrong thing (and did, in fact, so empower him).

But just think how great this new framing is. Congress didn't fail to force a change in Iraq policy, it simply gave the Bush Administration the flexibility to pursue Iraq as it saw fit. It didn't provide vast new surveillance powers to the state in the FISA reform, it gave the Government the flexibility to surveil its citizens in ways that work! It hasn't sat on its hands while the Bush Administration commits war crimes and tortures people. It's given the President the flexibility to question prisoners and keep Guantanamo open. Imagine how awful it would be if the President were forced to obey the law and could be restrained by Congress, he'd have no flexibility!

See, we're not heading towards an ever-expanding authoritarian state, we're simply flexible!

and why not, everyone else is including those dastardly bankers. I've read oh maybe a hundred interpretations of what the Trillion Dollar Rip-off Bill does and OMG it just goes on and on, a dozen new interpretations every day. This is becoming the Holy Bible of legislative acts; whatever you want to see in it, you can parse the text to support your view.

Several broad possibilities leap to mind:

(1) Could be that this is some enormously subtle yet powerful authoritarian power grab co-ordinated by the evil servants of our Corporatist Masters, a gigantic unstoppable collusion between the Republican and Democratic arms of Corporateamerica as the next step towards obtaining World Domination. [Note: If this is actually true, head for the hills Bunkie because otherwise you will be crushed. Survive and regroup for a distant rebellion is the only sane option.]

(2) Could be that this bill is a panicked reaction to largely unforeseen events, the likes of which have never before happened and the correct immediate response being entirely unknowable, the net result being a cobbled together mish-mash of open ended We-don't-know-what-to-do-so-let's-make-it-OK-to-do-whatever-might-possibly-need-doing dog's breakfast, a Joycean parody stream-of-consciousness run-on sentence of a bill more extruded than crafted from the acutely insane minds of average-intelligence people overwhelmed by fear and greed and double back flip reverse twist contortionist CYA political calculation with a fair dollop of special interest goodies like a kitchen sink sundae with an oh-yes-oh-yes-oh-yes-yes-yes cherry on top. A mass hysteria lizard brain deeply passive-aggressive message saying "Here's $700 Billion now Do-Whatever-The-Fuck-You-Want but please do something and if it all goes bad don't blame me."

(3) Some amalgamation of the two.

(4) Something far worse, with consequences darker than anything envisioned by either its crafters or any analysis yet performed.

(5) All of the above.

I favor Option #2, the bill is a clusterfuck primarily because nobody knows what to do and regardless eventually things will sort themselves out, but that's because I have latterly in life committed myself to being an optimist. Living as a realist was such a downer, very depressing; from a political perspective I was continuously miserable. As an optimist I find myself being happy some weeks a full 10% of the time and that is such a huge improvement in my political life I can't tell you. Highly commend the change in POV.

Regards the plans put forth by the candidates, McCain's to me sounds like "Well, my friends, we seem to have broken a leg so let's jump off a cliff" including the $300 Billion giveaway to the investor class to make them whole on their underwater mortgages - not a fan of that approach, no not at all.

Obama's is a phenomenal exercise in fuzzy logic, a little of this and a little of that in a mixed salad of Conservative escarole and Progressive arugula, no singular definitive focus anywhere and that paradoxically may be exactly the right approach to deal with the unknowable - a very tendentious academic economist equivalent to the Boy Scout imprecation to "Be Prepared!" Sad as it may be, perhaps that cautious sort of positioning is the best that anyone can do under present circumstances.