You can't get much more UnAmerican than part-nationalising the likes of Citygroup, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. But that's what George Bush has announced to stabilise the sector. The U.S. Government, Uncle Sam, is putting 250 billion dollars in. "It's not to take over the free market but to preserve it," said Mr Bush. A few days ago Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, said it would never happen. Who'd have thunk it?
Mr Paulson sometimes seems to be challenging the President for the title of Man Who Gets Most Things As Publically and Catastrophically Wrong As Possible. Brave effort Hank, but at this stage of the game it's really no contest.
As to the men who are vying to inherit this mess, they've been coming up with their own economic rescue plans. On Monday Barack Obama revealed his "economic rescue plan for the middle class". So on Tuesday, John McCain was in a familiar position: in his wake. McCain proposed 52.4 billion dollars of tax cuts for the middle class. At first sight - "do the math!" - that looks some seven billion dollars less costly than Obama's scheme. But at this stratospheric level of public figures and finance , who's counting? (On past performance, no one. That's why we're in the hole.)
We've been following the McCain campaign's apparently abrupt change in style and approach. Down in Virginia we saw the rally where Sarah Palin, if she is, as she claims, a pit bull, was more or less muzzled. The scene was Richmond Nascar track and the devotees turned up in their thousands, dressed in Republican red, eager for more of that raw, red meat, anti Obama aggression.
But it was not to be. The first sign that things would be different was when the country star, Hank Williams Jnr, softened his pitch. Two hours earlier, down the road in Virginia Beach, he sang an adaptation of his "Family Tradition" song. The original, for those of you who aren't down with the country music thang, celebrates a life of liquor and dope.
That's not quite on message for Palin's professed values. So his new, campaign rally version, entitled The McCain- Palin Tradition, extolled McCain and Sarah and, by implication, Alaska's First Dude, Todd Palin, with the line: "They don't have terrorist friends to whom their careers are linked." That was a reference to the line the Republicans have pushed in attempting to tie Obama to the 1960s radical, William Ayers. Terrorist? By the 1990s, when he sat on a charity committee with Obama, Ayers had been named Chicago's Man of the Year. He lectures on education. George Bush's Texas schools use his work.
By the time the Palins and Hank Jnr reached Richmond the terrorist friends line was transmuted into radical friends. And, hilariously, by the time the Republican party were issuing the lyrics to the "left wing liberal media" (the target of the first verse) the verse itself had completely disappeared. America is nationalising the banks and censoring the country singers!
And Sarah Palin, the self proclaimed pitbull? At Richmond she was the model of restraint, Sarah Palid. The worst she could say of the Democrats was "They look to the past because that's where you find blame. We're joining you and looking to the future because that's where you find solutions." It wasn't hard hitting. It wasn't much of anything.
So why the anodyne approach? The view, from all sides, seems to be that the anti-Obama attacks have been running out of control and Virginia makes that case. At the weekend Jeffrey Frederick, the chairman of Virginia's Republican Party, compared Obama to Osama, saying both have friends who've bombed the Pentagon.
Frederick is just the latest Virginian Republican to go over the top with personal attacks on Obama. In recent days the McCain campaign has felt obliged to repudiate the Virginian party leadership on three separate occasions. Hence Sarah Palin's toned down approach. We must assume it will all have been vetted and personally approved by John McCain.
But this raises the question, posed by angry dog owners ( the angry owners of angry dogs) on both sides of the Atlantic: what's the point of having a pitbull if you don't let it bite? What's the purpose of a tame Palin? McCain will be on his own in the final debate with Obama on Wednesday night. Will McCain release his own, inner pitbull? Will he let it off the leash by challenging Obama face to face about terrorist friends? In song?
Here, for Senator McCain, country music lovers and all those who enjoy a fine lyric, is the McCain-Palin Tradition as sung by Hank Williams Jnr (and censored by the Republican Party). Enjoy y'all!
The McCain-Palin Tradition
The left wing liberal media have
Always been a real close knit family
But, most of the American People
Don't believe 'em anyway ya see
Stop and think it over
Before you make your decision
If they smell something
They're gonna come down strong
It's a McCain - Palin tradition
Now this old Union's got problems
That is plain to see
The Democrats bankrupted Fannie Mae N Freddie Mac
Just like 1, 2, 3
The bankers didn't want to make all those bad loans,
But Bill Clinton said you got to
Now they want a bailout, what I'm talking about
Is a Democrat liberal who do
CHORUS:
John N Sarah tell ya
Just what they think
And they're not gonna blink
And they're gonna fix this country
Cause they're just like you N ole Hank
Yes John is a maverick
And Sarah fixed Alaska's broken condition
They're gonna go just fine
We're headed for better times
It's a McCain-Palin tradition
I am very proud of America's name
Bu no society is perfect
And we have had our stains
If I'm down at the coffee shop and
Somebody wants to give our flag friction
We say please move on
Cause we're standing strong
That's an old John McCain tradition
Repeat Chorus
Some are bound to tell you I'm
Preaching to the choir
And that is very true
And we are going even higher
Like a mama bear in Idaho
She'll protect your family's condition
If you mess with her cubs
She's gonna take off the gloves
It's an American female tradition
Repeat Chorus
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~48~RS~)