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Political Commentary

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October 3, 2008

There’s More Here than Just the Bailout Package By Lawrence Kudlow

On the morning after Senate passage of the Treasury rescue bill stocks are down 200 points. So there is no silver bullet to our economic woes.

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October 2, 2008

Law for Poor Didn't Cause Meltdown By Froma Harrop

Accomplished Googlers can probably find the original talking points off which dozens of conservatives made essentially the same case: The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 caused the financial crisis.

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October 2, 2008

Making the Bailout Less Toxic By Joe Conason

The initial failure to pass bailout legislation reflected a political system as bereft of confidence as the financial markets. President George W. Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had no credibility to match the arrogance of their initial demand for absolute power in distributing $700 billion of public assistance (the old synonym for welfare).

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October 2, 2008

Our Bair Necessity By Lawrence Kudlow

You know what? Hank Paulson may not be the most powerful financial person in the country right now. That honor goes to Sheila Bair, the chairman of the FDIC.

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October 2, 2008

Bonanza. Bailout. Bonanza. By Debra J. Saunders

Who do I blame for this financial disaster? Let me count the villains. Start with President Bush and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.

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October 2, 2008

Senate Sensibilities - The October 2008 Update By Larry J. Sabato

There are a few changes to report in the nation's Senate races since we last reviewed them in July-almost all of them in favor of the Democratic candidates. Yet the fundamental outlook hasn't changed terribly much. The Democrats will pick up a fair number of seats to pad their slim 51-to-49 margin. They are defending a mere 12 seats, and all their incumbents are running again. The Republicans have drawn the short straw, trying to protect 23 seats with five incumbents retiring in a tough political environment for the GOP.

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October 2, 2008

The Importance of Branding: A Commentary

What we've all witnessed this week was more than a failure of Wall Street or of Washington, it was a catastrophic failure of branding.

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October 1, 2008

There's Still Time, John McCain By Dick Morris

Trailing six points in Rasmussen’s poll, having fallen four points since he suspended his campaign last week, the question for John McCain is: Haven’t you learned anything?

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October 1, 2008

Yet Freedom By Tony Blankley

There is nothing new under the sun. The United States has endured major financial panics in 1837, 1873, 1893, 1907, 1929, 1933 and now

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September 30, 2008

Supreme Parody: Biden versus Palin By Debra J. Saunders

Want a preview of Thursday's veepstakes debate between running mates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin? Pick up a copy of Christopher Buckley's latest satirical novel, "Supreme Courtship," that begins when a very unpopular American president decides to tweak Senate solons by nominating to the U.S. Supreme Court America's most popular TV judge, the "sassy, flippant, sexy," no-nonsense, gun-toting hottie from Texas, Pepper Cartwright.

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September 29, 2008

The End of the U.S. Financial System as We Know It? By Lawrence Kudlow

A number of Republican House members and staff, along with others who are plugged in, are telling me that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats will come back with a new bill that includes all the left-wing stuff that was scrubbed from the bill that was defeated today in the House.

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September 28, 2008

The Sheriff and the Professor By Debra J. Saunders

Before getting to Friday night's debate, let us look at what happened before the debate.Yes, John McCain's suspension of his campaign earlier in the week and call for a delay of Friday's debate were campaign stunts.

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September 27, 2008

Are We at an Inflection Point? By Michael Barone

You can sum up much of 20th century history by saying that in the 1930s Americans decided that markets didn't work and government did, and that in the 1970s Americans decided that government didn't work and markets did.

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September 26, 2008

A Paulson-Cantor Plan Is a Win-Win for Taxpayers By Lawrence Kudlow

The single-biggest mistake in the Paulson bank-rescue-plan marketing effort has been the failure to explain clearly how taxpayers are going to recoup $700 billion used to buy toxic assets at auction in order to unfreeze the banking system.

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September 26, 2008

The Brilliance of McCain's Move By Dick Morris

McCain has transformed a minority in both houses of Congress and a losing position in the polls into the key role in the bailout package, the main man around whom the final package will take shape. He arrived in Washington to find the Democrats working with the Bush Administration to pass an unpopular $700 billion bailout.

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September 26, 2008

Remembering Alcee Hastings By Susan Estrich

Alcee Hastings used to be a federal judge. Then he got impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Now he's a congressman from Florida. People have a right to vote for whomever they want, even one of the six federal judges in America ever to be removed by Congress.

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September 26, 2008

Voters, Start Your Engines By Cordel Faulk

Presidential debate season is upon us. That means John McCain, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Sarah Palin are traveling around the country with huge binders of prep materials under their arms---and dreams of an eight-year relationship with the Secret Service dancing in their heads.

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September 25, 2008

Bailing Out the Bailout By Debra J. Saunders

Until Wednesday afternoon, when GOP presidential nominee John McCain announced that he was heading to Washington to work with congressional leaders and the Bushies to craft a better bailout bill, both McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama clearly had believed that the last place they wanted to be seen was in Washington.

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September 25, 2008

Louisiana Politics: Undone by the Wind By Froma Harrop

BATON ROUGE, La. -- I assume that someone has removed the crushed blue Hyundai from the parking lot of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries. Two days after Hurricane Ike, the car was there with a tree trunk still embedded in its roof. And Ike was a pussycat next to Gustav, which had pummeled the area two weeks before.

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September 25, 2008

A Special Prosecutor for Wall Street By Joe Conason

Debate over how to resolve the nation's financial emergency is taking a salutary direction for the moment, as politicians of both parties refuse to be herded by the Bush White House into a ridiculous $700-billion swindle.