The bottom line for me is that any Republican that actually changed their vote based on what Pelosi said is a disgrace, while I continue to question how strongly Pelosi actually wanted the vote to pass when she gave a speech like that.

Idiots all...

I read the speech and did not see anything that would have made me change my decision to vote one way or the other based on what she said.

can you cite anything that she said that could have a changed someone's decision?

personally, I would have voted against what was on the table yesterday.

As I said already, vote on the merits of the proposal, not on what somebody says in a stupid speech.

The Republicans that trotted out that nonsense are disgraceful.  It's BS.

Pelosi may or may not have wanted the proposal to pass.  I have my doubts.

After all the drama and histrionics in Washington why would Nancy Pelosi have NOT wanted the bill to pass? I'm not following that... Why wouldn't the Democrats have dug in their heels and pursued another, alternate solution to the economic crisis rather than using the the Bush/Paulson remedy as a framework? Why would the Democrats have even bothered with days of hearings and negotiations? Politically, there is no more to be gained from opposing George W. Bush...he's about as low as a lame-duck President can get.

Bruce,

I agree with you on this one.  I don't care how people try to defend her, she made a mistake.  There are plenty of opportunities to bash the Administration and their stupidity.  This was an instance that required her to encourage people to vote for the bill and she screwed it up.

We, as liberals, need to accept when we are wrong also and not just blindly defend anything a Democrat does.

Why are so many people upset at Congress for not passing a bill that nobody wants?

I'm opposed to giving Bush a huge pile of free money.  Let the market hang until we get a real president.

Saying nobody wants the bill is pretty misleading considering that most of the electorate is woefully uninformed on the issue.

This bill should not pass or fail based on public opinion, but instead on the merits of the proposal.  Put politics aside for once.

as odious as this medicine may be, it's probably something we need to take.   there is blame on both sides for how we got into this situation, but we should not fall for the republican cure-all for everything, which in this case is elimination of capital gains taxes, thereby making our budget deficits even worse and giving even more to them that's already got.

i was watching the today show this morning, and matt lauer was hosting a discussion about pelosi's picking on those poor republicans.  he had on two congressmen, one from each party.  lauer was being his usual unbiased self [not].   he asked the democrat why pelosi could only get half the california delegation to vote with her, and the democratic congressman started to point out that not one of the arizona delegation voted for it, and lauer starts going off on a tangent about isn't that kind of partisan rhetoric exactly what we're talking about here.  uhh, matt?  you brought the subject up by asking why pelosi couldn't get all the california delegation to vote for it.

now the senate is discussing tax cuts to be added to their bill to make it attract more votes in the house.   wrong move.  it's time we started paying for what we spend.  time to stop living on the credit card. 

Paulson's initial proposal, which invented the number 700 billion from absolutely nothing, contained an explicit requirement for no oversight, and demanded immediate action for no verifiable reason, did not "put politics aside".

When republicans ask for bipartisanship, they always say "you go first".  They missed their chance, so let's do it without them with a democratic president.  Hopefully it takes more than a few weeks to create a Great Depression.  If not, we'll add it to Bush's legacy.

(This is to bruce1ace.  Reply isn't working.)