What Caught My Eye Today

Economy - After two weeks of anguishing debate, Congress has passed and President Bush signed a massive plan to save the financial industry and the economy at large from an unthinkable free fall. Now, the world holds its breath, seeing if it will work. Excuse me for a moment while I check to see if there are any pigs flying around outside. The legislation gives the government broad authority to buy up toxic mortgage-related investments and other distressed assets from shaky financial institutions. The hope is that it will restore confidence in markets and thaw a near-freeze in credit availability. The immediate response to the 263-171 vote was not promising. Wall Street, fell 157 points on Friday as more economic bad news, such as a jump in job losses, outweighed news that Congress was finally coming to the rescue. What's this? The American public doubts Congress' ability to fix this mess? Imagine that. Barack Obama spoke to many in the Congressional Black Caucus and helped persuade 13 to switch their votes. Nine freshmen Democrats also switched to "yes" votes after a conference call with Obama in which he promised an economic stimulus bill would be a top priority if he is elected. Republican John McCain also lobbied for the measure, according to aides who declined to release a list of lawmakers he called. Is that possibly because McCain didn't sway as many votes as Obama did? I think the issue here--and for a change, I agree with Wall Street--is that passage of this bailout package was probably the easiest part of trying to salvage the economy. Now Secretary Paulson has to figure out how to implement this program and hope to hell that it works. Oh yeah, didn't you hear? There's no guarantee that this $700 billion bailout program will actually help.

2008 Presidential Race - First a belated comment on the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday night. In a word, disappointment. Here I was tuning in to watch either Sarah Palin or Joe Biden say something stupid--as the media strongly suggested would happen--and what did I get? 90 minutes of mostly well-constructed and well-articulated arguments. What a letdown. Oh sure, Palin avoided some questions and the general consensus was that Biden won the debate based on the substance of his responses, but where were the meltdowns that I was promised? That being said, we do have a nice little nugget from Palin. Seems she didn't get the memo on John McCain's decision to cease campaign operations in Michigan. Palin said she was disappointed that the McCain campaign decided to stop competing in Michigan, an indication that the vice presidential candidate had not been part of the decision. Word of the McCain campaign's decision to move staff out of Michigan and stop advertising in the state broke around midday Thursday — the same day as Palin's vice presidential debate against Joe Biden. The campaign had decided that the $1 million a week it was spending in Michigan wasn't worth it with internal polls showing Democratic nominee Barack Obama approaching a double-digit lead. Apparently, Palin also forgot to read that chapter in "Running for Vice President for Dummies" where it says, when the vice president's opinion is asked for, the president will tell him or her what it is.

Iran - The Bush administration has shelved plans to set up a diplomatic outpost in Iran, in part over fears it could affect the U.S. presidential race or be interpreted as political meddling. The proposal to send U.S. diplomats to Tehran for the first time in three decades attracted great attention when it was floated over the summer, but has now been placed on indefinite hold as November's election nears and Iran continues to defy demands to halt suspect nuclear activities. Given the state of the American political system, I cannot altogether disagree with this decision (as much as it pains me to ever agree with the Bush administration). I think the tragic aspect of this story is that the peace process--or at least our role in it--has to take a backseat to the political process. Last time I checked, peace didn't run for election every four years. I'm not sure the precedent being set here bodes well for future diplomatic efforts. I can see it now. You better get all your peace talks done in those off-election years. Yeah, that'll work.

India - The top American and Indian diplomats lauded a new agreement that opens up U.S. nuclear trade with India, but they stopped short of signing the deal, which some private U.S. arms control experts say is likely to speed up nuclear arms competition in Asia. The Senate earlier in the week approved legislation authorizing President Bush to make the deal. Wow, the Senate sure was busy this week. An economic bailout and foreign policy all in the same week? That's almost enough to make you wonder if these guys do some real work. Oh, who am I kidding. This was probably just an anomaly. Once Bush signs the authorizing legislation, he is required to certify that the agreement with India is consistent with U.S. obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. He must also certify that it is U.S. policy to cooperate with international efforts to further restrict transfers of technology related to uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. The U.S. agreement on civil nuclear cooperation allows American businesses to begin selling nuclear fuel, technology and reactors to India in exchange for safeguards and U.N. inspections at India's civilian — but not military — nuclear plants. The Bush administration considers the deal a crowning achievement of the president's second term in office. It could, however, turn out to be the last major diplomatic achievement of a presidency that is struggling in its final months on a number of other fronts, including a setback in relations with Russia after its invasion of Georgia and the prospect of a breakdown in a nuclear agreement with North Korea. I suppose the concept of 'achievement' suggests something positive. I say this because it's a little unfair to say that Bush's foreign policy hasn't achieved much. I personally believe that the failures Bush has tallied up over the past 8 years is quite the achievement. Some real effort was put in to foul up as monumentally as he has. But like I said, I'm guessing that they were looking for some positive 'achievements'. So it is in that spirit that I say, "Way to go, Mr. President on that groundbreaking agreement with India, which--oh, by the way--includes no inspection of military nuclear plants where nuclear weapons are most likely to be produced.