The Bailout Defeat: A Political Credibility Crisis

Time Magazine's Michael Scherer notes that our political system might be just as bankrupt as our financial system. I

"Nearly every major political leader in America supported the $700 billion financial bailout bill. The President of the United States. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for president. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and the Senate. All of them said the same thing. Vote yes."

"But a majority of those politicians anointed by the U.S. Constitution to reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that Americans have long felt for their representatives in Washington D.C. The nation's credit crisis exposed Monday a much deeper and more fundamental problem -- a political credibility crisis that now threatens to harm our nation further, should the markets freeze up and more companies begin to fail, as many experts predict."...