Stop. Hoovertime

So it seems that there's no chance that an auto bailout bill passes the Senate. Why? Apparently we know have an infatuation with fiddling while Rome burns and think "What's the collapse of 2 out of three car companies and adding another couple million to the jobless lines?" So unless something is done by Congress or Bush decides to use some of the bank bailout for the car companies, it's pretty dire. So luckily the media gets to analyze the most important thing about this failure: the politics.

By opposing the automaker bailout, Republicans now find themselves vulnerable to charges that they are insensitive to ailing American auto companies and the millions of workers reliant on the domestic auto industry, a problem compounded by their inability to rally around a clear alternative to the $14 billion package of loans that had been backed by Democrats and the White House.
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Republicans furious at the government’s intervention to prop up the economy say the vote against the bailout marks the beginning of the party’s return to its small government roots. But even those members acknowledged the downside risk.
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That was the message Vice President Dick Cheney brought to a closed-door Senate GOP lunch Wednesday, reportedly warning that it’ll be “Herbert Hoover” time if aid to the industry was rejected, according to a senator familiar with the remarks. A Cheney spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny the vice president’s remarks.

Dick Cheney...the voice of...reason? Or was he pumping his fist and whooping "It's Hoover Time motherfuckers! Yee haw!"? It's nice that Republicans found their small government principles on the precipice of a Depression and after they bailed out the banks but before they bailed out American workers. Funny how that works. The bill reportedly ran into problems when the Republicans decided to use it as an opportunity to union bust, because what better time is there than to go after one of the core constituencies of your opponent than on the edge of the collapse of American manufacturing?

Most of the Senators were trying to hide behind voters, saying that the American people opposed the auto bailout. Of course they do, they don't know anything. They hear "Money for corporations" and get mad. You know what they'll like less and bitch about more? A depression and another 3 million jobless because nothing was done. "You should have bailed out the auto companies" will be their cry when it all goes to shit. We didn't want to bail out Lehman brothers either and you listened, how'd that work out? Now we supposedly don't want to bail out the auto industry, how do you think that'll work out?