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The Greater Depression?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican John McCain's campaign blamed presidential rival Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on Monday for the congressional rejection of a $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street and said Obama failed a test of leadership. "Barack Obama failed to lead, phoned it in, attacked John McCain and refused to even say if he supported the final bill," McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in a statement after the House of Representatives voted 228 to 205 against the plan.

WESTMINSTER (AFP) — Democratic White House contender Barack Obama expressed confidence Monday that a rejected bailout package would still get through Congress and urged markets to stay calm. At a rally here, Obama also scorned Republican rival John McCain's claims of leadership over the financial crisis and said his very philosophy of economic management had been exposed as bankrupt.In a shot at McCain's intervention in delicate congressional talks over the bailout, Obama said the Republican's philosophy "prefers scoring political leadership rather than (offering) smart leadership. It is time we had some adult supervision. That's why I'm running for president."


The Dow just suffered a 778-point drop -- the largest one-day loss ever. Banks are failing. People are losing their homes and jobs. We're full-speed ahead for a full-blown recession. How long before we see bread lines and people stuffing their life savings under their mattresses for safekeeping?

We all know my political leanings. But I'm going to, as someone loves to say, take off my political party hat and put on my American hat and tell both of these candidates and their cronies to SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP. Fix the goddamn problem. And do it without finger pointing or political maneuvering or media spin.

When I hear the national newscasters break in to regular programming on an FM rock radio station to talk about "financial failure" and "$1.2 trillion in stock market losses" and "economic catastrophe," I'm smart enough to know we're in dead-serious trouble. This isn't a game; we're not losing Boardwalk on a Monopoly board, Mr. Legislators.

If someone can't figure out a way out of this nightmare right now, whoever wins the White House in November may have to start selling bits of it on eBay to make ends meet. Not that anyone out here will have any spare cash to spend.

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