Cry Babies & Undistinguished Candidates

Speaker Pelosi gave a partisan speech at the wrong time; it’s indeed possible that it cost her 15 votes. Still, if those Republicans had been of stronger backbones and more nimble minds — and more mature than Pelosi, who, let’s call it, gave a relatively tame, generic partisan speech — the bill would have passed. Those Republicans were looking for an excuse, and Pelosi gave it to them. It shouldn’t matter what Pelosi says; the future of the Republican was at stake.  (Newt on Air Force One, anyone?)  Pelosi’s not responsible for how House Republicans vote. [...]

Neither candidate really explained the trade-offs to the American people.  There was something pernicious, in a way, in both candidates’ failure to answer Jim Lehrer’s simple question: what will the trade-offs be in January? What, of all the things you’ve promised, will you not be able to accomplish?

As president, both candidates will rely on the power of the bully pulpit to rally the country, and yet neither candidate has distinguished themselves during the worst financial crisis in the country’s recent history.