Batchelor: Sergeant Schmidt Sees Nothing; Nor Does the President-Elect

John Batchelor wrote early this morning on his blog:

What Was On the McCain Plane

John McCain op Steve “Sergeant” Schmidt (right) provides fevered responses to rambling questions by interpid memorist Ana Marie Cox, who has no discernible partisanship, in a recent TBD. The result is a dumbfounding demonstration that what was on the McCain campaign plane was chatter among arrogant, unread, evasive, envious and obsequious characters who remain ignorant of their own failures. Skipping his heavy-lifting about how presidential campaigns are tough, his heaving sighs about the well-known war hero, his blame-shifting to Blackberry leakers from his own camp, Mr. Schmidt exposes himself as either a fool or a fraud when he claims that he knew the race was done on Monday September 29 when the House GOP voted down the Paulson folly Tarp 1.

“I was flying on a plane with Gov. Palin to Sedona for debate prep, watching the split screen on the TVs, because she had a Jet Blue charter, and it showed the stock market down seven, eight hundred points; it showed the Congress voting down the bailout package on the other side, and then, House Republicans went out and, told the world that the reason that they voted against this legislation, allowed the stock market to crash, allowed the economy to be so injured, was because Nancy Pelosi had given a mean and partisan speech on the floor. And this was their response. And I just viewed it as beyond devastating, and thought that at that moment running with an “R” next to your name, in this year, was probably lethal.”

You read correctly. Mr. Schmidt blames the men and women in the House of Representatives, who defended the country from the grotesque theft of pubic funds by pilfering bankers, as the villains who crashed the market, damaged the economy and lost the presidential election. He blames the brave few who fought for us plundered many.

This is a either a mindless distortion of the facts by an exhausted whiner or is the sort of rewrite of history practiced by the moral coward Soviets.

The facts are that the Hank Paulson (left) plan was a half-cooked stew of guesses and self-dealing that has failed from the first and continues to be nothing much but transfer taxpayer money to the greedy and guilty.

On Monday September 29, the House rose up and refused to go along with the panicky, and the GOP members were joined by Democrat members to defeat both of the party’s leaderships and the White House, a stunning demonstration of backbone and principle. The markets were selling off not because they House wouldn’t rollover but because the banks had closed their doors to credit.

No one trusted anyone because they all knew they were sneak thieves who had poisoned the asset base of the planet with cancerous loans. It was the high noon of bank gangsterism. The wild selling around the world was because everyone could see that Mr. Paulson was ignorant, as was the White House, both the President and Vice-President, and every central banker with a mobile phone.

They still don’t know what to do. Even Jim Cramer doesn’t know what to do.

But all this fact, then and now, is not present for Steve Schmidt. He sees nothing. He hears nothing. He learns nothing. And he was on McCain’s plane. We can imagine what the other geniuses around the candidate, Rick Davis, Mark Salter, Lindsay Graham, Joe Lieberman, were saying about the bailout fight and the sturdy 111 men and women of the GOP who refused on September 29 and again on October 3 to go along with the hysterical stupidity.

“Those rascally nobody Republicans!”

“Those selfish right-wing midgets!”

The Scary Part Is What Is Still On the Obama Plane

The Friday 7 press press conference by President-Elect Obama (left) provided little confidence that the Democratic team can figure out the bank collapse any more than the Republican team. Mr. Obama remains in campaign speak, and he likes to talk about the “middle-class,” whatever that is, and “stimulus,” whatever that is, and the mission called “helping homeowners,” just as if there is still three-day polling in Indiana to worry about.

Mr. Obama, the vote is in. Time for clarity.

The problem is not the anxious middle-class nor the worthy jobless nor the gloom of the tradesman and online hawkers. The problem is that there is a world wide financial panic caused by a collapse of credit. No bank trusts to loan because the poisoned sausage of bad loans is still stuffed in every vault.

The Treasury is throwing taxpayer cash at banks who horde it (polite term, husband) to avoid their own martyrdom. And you want to write $600 checks to “hardworking families?” The recommendation is, “Keep it real, guy.”

Mr. Obama stood at the microphone in front of the arms-crossed Joe Biden, and the hands-clasped Rahm Emanuel, and behind them were eighteen grey heads and eight American flags. Not a gleam of confidence in a set of eyes. From the fly-fishing Paul Volcker to the still charmingly Hobbit like Robert Reich, not a shrug, not a wink, not a quick pop up on the balls of the feet, nothing in the way of confidence.

Twenty we-haven’t-a-clue citizens led by one earnest, sonorous, light-resume fellow in the TV lights who three days ago could blame the Republicans and the White House and Wall Street for the sins of the past.

Now?

“I know that we will succeed if we put aside partisanship and work together as one nation. And that is what I intend to do.”

Hey! This isn’t MSNBC log rolling. This is fear itself. Do you see? I figured not.