Ross:

It’s the Russo-Georgian War all over again: McCain responds boldly/impulsively, Obama responds carefully/overcautiously, but they both end up saying roughly the same thing, and the pundit class goes back to obsessing about whatever shocking poll or web ad has been released that day.

This is right.  The abandonment of even the pretense of a policy debate (and an abandonment of the actual presidential debates!) between the two parties just reinforces one of the features of this and every other cycle, which is more pronounced this year than usual because of the biography-driven nature of both nominees’ candidacies, and this is the irrelevance or near-irrelevance of policy debate in presidential elections.  While there are few substantive differences that actually matter–and differences on fiscal and domestic policy are going to evaporate if Congress actually approves of anything like $700 billion for the bailout–and most of the news concerns tactics and the horse race, we are at least being treated to the very different styles that the two candidates offer. 

When it came to the war in Georgia, McCain managed to make a position he shares with Obama seem even crazier than it already is, because his generally reckless and impulsive style has led him in the past to stake out provocative anti-Russian views that gave his support for Saakashvili the air of fanaticism.  Obama hedged his initial position and then came around to the Washington consensus view, which McCain backers see as dithering and sane people find slightly more reassuring, but in the end he tends to come around to very bad, horrible positions, just as he did on FISA legislation.  So, given the alternatives between someone who instinctively adopts a terrible position and someone who grudgingly makes his way to the same position, we are still provided with a pretty striking contrast between the candidates.  McCain will have us on tenterhooks on a daily basis wondering whether he will call for impeaching the Supreme Court or bombing Uruguay and he will denounce anyone who questions his proposal as a selfish and corrupt villain, and while Obama might adopt equally awful views he will do so more slowly and allow the rest of us time to organize opposition and rational counterarguments that might actually prevail.

Palin answered questions!  Here was one answer that was particularly awful: 

POLITICO: Do you think our presence in Iraq and [Afghanistan] and our continued presence there is inflaming Islamic extremists?

A: I think our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan will lead to further security of our nation, again, because the mission is to take the fight over there.  Do not let them come over here and attempt again what they accomplished here, and that was some destruction, terrible destruction on that day.  But since September 11, Americans uniting and rebuilding and committing to never letting that happen again. 

Seriously–fight them over there so we don’t have fight them over here?  I thought they retired that old chestnut years ago.  Okay, maybe I was wrong about having her talk to the press.  Maybe it’s just as well that she stayed mum rather than recite the administration’s Talking Points Greatest Hits of 2003.

Spending $700 billion (which is really $2.5 trillion since you are borrowing the money) to stop a recession—no worse that what we saw in 1990-91 (one quarter of -3 percent growth and one quarter of -2 percent growth) or even 2001 (one quarter of -1.4 percent growth)—seems nutsy. If they want to get this thing passed, Paulson and Bernanke better be more explicit about the risks. ~James Pethokoukis

Via Andrew

As others have noted, two days before he wrote the quote above Pethokoukis was issuing dire warnings of 20-30% unemployment and $30 trillion dollar losses unless everyone got with the program.  “It’s time for shock and awe,” he said.  He was especially annoyed with those “MellonHeads,” as he had called them, who argued against the bailout.  But, as I suspected, the alarmists seem to be wildly wrong in what they are saying will happen.  At the very least, there is a much more plausible-sounding projection that sounds very unpleasant, but is far short of catastrophic.  The figures from the quote above come from the forecast of Global Insight:

Although the U.S. financial crisis is bringing sweeping changes to Wall Street, parallels to the Great Depression are overblown. The U.S. economy is far more resilient today, thanks to income support policies, federal deposit insurance to prevent banking panics, and flexible exchange rates. From 1929 to 1933, real GDP contracted 27%, prices fell 25%, and the unemployment rate climbed from 3% to about 25%. Even in our pessimistic alternative forecast, the peak-to-trough decline in real GDP is just 1.5% and the unemployment rate peaks below 7.5%.   

Let’s understand that this would be a sharp and nasty recession, and at the time it will seem small consolation that unemployment has gone up to “just” 7.5, especially if you are one of the people affected by job losses.  In the last week, pro-bailout advocates have frequently chided critics for wanting to cut off our collective nose to spite our face, but if Global Insight’s forecast of what will happen if Congress takes no action is correct it is the proponents of the bailout who will probably be doing more long-term harm than good if they get their way.  That doesn’t mean that absolutely nothing should be done.  It does mean that the bailout simply doesn’t make sense.  Besides being overwhelmingly unpopular, and thus politically radioactive to anyone who supports it, the bailout is probably overkill, an excessive response to an excessively-hyped danger. 

Something that I have noticed over the last decade or so is the insistence, usually but not always by Boomers, that such-and-such a crisis or threat is the greatest we have ever faced.  Put it down to generational self-absorption or self-importance, or put it down to wanting to outdo the experience of their parents, but at several points in the last decade there have been hysterical reactions on both sides of the political spectrum to events that some large part of the population deems the greatest, most important or worst thing to have ever happened.  The threat of jihadism, we have been regularly told, is greater than any threat we have faced before, which is objectively absurd.  Some of the more excitable antiwar activists have repeatedly said that the war in Iraq is the greatest blunder in U.S. history (not so–entry into WWI was), as if to invest the conflict and opposition to it with a kind of world-historical importance that it will remarkably probably not have in retrospect.  As with opposing jihadism without hysterics, it is possible to oppose the war and recognize it as deeply wrong without these theatrics.   Now we are in the midst of a financial crisis, and it is very serious, but it is as if one cannot recognize something to be serious and very worrisome without engaging in neocon-like hyperbole.  If there is a danger of economic contraction, it can’t just be like any old recession.  No, it must be a second Depression, and if you don’t accept this fearmongering you are not to be taken seriously.  When people are trying to scare you like this, it is because they are covering over some weakness in their argument.  They make it seem as if they are trying to get you to focus on real dangers, but they are more often distracting you from their abuses or errors. 

As with the debate concerning the response to terrorism, there is a tendency to want to break down the debate along exceedingly simplistic lines: either you understand how serious the problems are, or you don’t, and even if you do there can be no disagreement about how to respond to the situation.  If you are not on board with every illegal and unconstitutional act of the government to fight terrorists, you “do not understand the threat we face,” and now if you are not on board with one of the largest expansions of the state into the economy in history you simply don’t get how bad things are.  The goal of this framing is always the same: to intimidate and frighten dissenters, increase the power of the state and erode the last remnants of free society in the name of security.  

Free people accept a certain degree of insecurity and uncertainty in order to remain free.  This conflicts with ideals of comfort and convenience, as it always has done, but if there is one lesson that we all ought to be learning from this crisis it is the very simple truth that we cannot have it all.  There are always trade-offs, and to have the degree of comfort and security pro-bailout advocates consider essential we have to trade far too much freedom and cede far too much power.  Given enough time to reflect on the matter, it becomes clear that this is the fundamental question, and we know what the answer should be.  That is why there has been such an effort to rush the decision and keep people from thinking about it, because without the sense of urgency and the fear it inspires it seems unlikely that such a terrible idea would be given a hearing.

The GOP loyalistresponse to McCain’s stunt has been predictable (right down to Gingrich’s Romneyesque call for a “workout, not a bailout”), and it says a great deal about what these people think constitutes leadership: opportunism, trying to hog the credit for other people’s work and, above all, a mindless dedication to taking action.  No doubt, if these were what made for great leaders McCain would be the new Augustus. 

Laughably, Gingrich likens this to Eisenhower’s “I will go to Korea,” but unlike Eisenhower and the Korean war McCain has no credibility concerning the crisis he is supposedly addressing.  In the end, knowing when you can contribute something and knowing when to avoid complicating an already difficult situation by intruding on ongoing negotiations is what separates grandstanding from leadership.  It is what separates the simple egomaniacs from the ambitious pols who nonetheless have some idea what public service is.  McCain’s belief that he is indispensable in a time of crisis is the surest sign that he is unfit for any office in republican government, much less the chief magistracy of the Republic.

But exceptionalism has taken an ugly twist of late. It’s become the angry refuge of the America that wants to deny the real state of the world.

From an inspirational notion, however flawed in execution, that has buttressed the global spread of liberty, American exceptionalism has morphed into the fortress of those who see themselves threatened by “one-worlders” (read Barack Obama) and who believe it’s more important to know how to dress moose than find Mumbai. ~Roger Cohen

As I said earlier this month, it is just as easy to make the case that the parties could exchange the conventionally assigned roles of exceptionalists and “one-worlders” and it would make just as much sense.  Cohen is trying to pin an “isolationist” label on McCain/Palin that is insulting to “isolationists.”  Obama doesn’t think “we are all Georgians,” but McCain does.  Obama frequently makes rhetorical nods towards making American problems the priority of the government, while McCain is clearly far more comfortable schmoozing with all the various foreign leaders for whom he seems to feel such admiration.  The odd thing about this election is that McCain has somehow been allowed to wear the mantle of the proud American despite his obvious lack of interest in specifically American interests, while Obama, whose foreign experience actually has been fairly limited, bears the burden of association with Europe and other parts of the world.  At the same time, Obama espouses a belief in American “leadership” in the world that is no less hubristic and overly ambitious than McCain’s, and in this sense he is no less of a nationalist–even if that nation is defined in terms of “ideals”–than McCain.  There have always been nationalists who saw their countries as vehicles for universalist ideologies, and to the extent that globalists such as McCain and Obama consider American hegemony to be fundamental to the global system they are nationalists of a kind.

“I must tell you, there are those in the public debate who have said that we must act now. The last time I heard that, I was on a used-car lot,” said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana. “The truth is, every time somebody tells you that you’ve got to do the deal right now, it usually means they’re going to get the better part of the deal.” ~CNN

Via Ilya Somin

Haste is the state’s greatest ally, and delay is the shield of the people.  As I said yesterday:

A useful thing to remember in the days to come: whenever someone yells about an impending catastrophe, he is probably either trying to sell you something or trying to steal something from you. 

The last time McCain at least pretended to suspend a political campaign (all for the sake of the greater good, of course), it was during our aggressive and unjust war against Yugoslavia.  Incidentally, it was right around that same time that I developed my profound dislike of McCain, which, as you may have noticed, endures to this day.  Back then, it was just as much a stunt as it is today, which he used to catapult himself into the national limelight and earn himself a reputation as some sort of bold leader.  As always, McCain’s pretensions to being a great statesman are always part of a cynical ploy to gain media attention and political advantage.  In ’99, there was the added bonus of boosting an unnecessary war, which became McCain’s m.o. from that point on.  It does make me wonder why McCain has been engaged in all of this sordid political activity for the last year and a half while our soldiers have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I mean, doesn’t he know that there’s a war on and we must all “come together” as Americans?  After all, now is not the time for petty partisanship.

If the first SUSA poll on the question means anything, McCain’s grandstanding decision to suspend his campaign is a huge political loser, which I suppose some remaining McCain devotees will cite as proof of his integrity.  “It couldn’t have been a transparent political stunt, since it was such a politically stupid thing to do!”  Wait for it.

86% want the debate to happen on Friday, and half of respondents want the debate to go ahead as scheduled as a foreign policy debate.  Just 10% think it should be postponed.  There is a little more reflexive support from Republicans and conservatives, but what McCain proposes for Friday is opposed by just about everyone.  Only 14% agree that suspending the campaign is the right response.  46% say that it would be “bad for America” if there is no debate on Friday.  If we are assessing the political effect of this decision, I don’t see how it can be considered as anything but disastrous.  As far as aiding in negotiations on the bailout, McCain has nothing to contribute (perhaps he could call up Andy Cuomo for some advice) and will be there, as always, mugging for the cameras as part of his desperate bid for positive coverage serious effort to save America. 

Update: Palin is also suspending her part of the campaign, which will at least make her isolation from most of the media seem less ridiculous.  It will also give her some time to go find that evidence of McCain’s financial regulatory work that she has promised Katie Couric.  The McCain campaign is also proposing to scrap, er, postpone the VP debate.  Perhaps the strategy is to show how bad a meltdown looks like to encourage people to back the bailout. 

Second Update: Former Rep. Mickey Edwards (R-OK) calls McCain’s suspension of the campaign “somewhere on the stupidity scale between plain silly and numbingly desperate.”  That sounds about right.

In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy.

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number [bold mine-DL].” ~Forbes

I suppose we should be grateful that there are people in government who think multiple hundreds of billions still count as a large number.