Brinksmanship Game Won, We All Lose

Well, it looks like the Republican Senate Minority, after ushering through $700 Billion to help banks, has killed a $14 Billion dollar "just get us to the Obama administration" loan. Guess we all get to find out if all that terrible stuff that will happen if we don't bail them out really will happen after all.

I hope that the Democrats in congress finally realize the futility of trying to compromise with these jackasses. In order to compromise, you need a good faith negotiator on the other side. THERE IS NO SUCH PERSON. In the next congress, Democrats will have enough of a majority in the House that the can (not will, but CAN) largely ignore the minority party. In the Senate, the Democrats should pass their bills and let McConnell try to keep together 40 votes. Senators like Spectre in PA, Bond in MO, Burr in NC, Voinovich in OH and Grassley in IA are all vulnerable (and all in states won by Obama except for Bond). Do they really want to go into 2010 with "I stopped Obama's health plan" as their slogan? I doubt it.

Of course, I doubt that the Democrats will learn this lesson. As Will Rogers quipped: "I am not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat."

UPDATE: Before I go to bed, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this news has the markets panicking (to be fair, shadows, funny shaped rocks, and small children saying "boo" panic the market at this point but anyway...). US Stock Futures are sinking (the markets are down 2.5-3% as of right now) and the Nikkei is dropping especially automotive stocks interestingly. Wonder how it will look in the morning...

UPDATE II: Turns out the markets are doing ok today. Dow started off low but is now back up to where it closed yesterday. Other markets about the same. On a related note, the dailykos has a list of the senators that voted to approve $700 Billion for Wall St. and against the auto bailout.