the best revenge?

As I watch the financial debacle that our country is sidling into, I'm beginning to wonder if it might not be the best thing if John McCain becomes (as I already suspect he will) our next president. The economy of the United States is going to take a massive beating over the next several years, and the government is going to be forced to bail out the greedy miscreants who have gotten us into this mess or watch the nation descend into a depression that would make the last century's look like a party at the Gatsby's.

Regardless of who the president is, the federal government is going to have to make good on trillions of dollars of bad debt with no accountability enforced on the bad actors that caused it, for no other reason than to avoid the utter financial destruction of our nation. Normal people are going to be brushed aside and left to survive the best they can while the despicable scumbags that caused the problem are going to get to keep all of the money that they essentially stole by means of the new, creative accounting that they developed in order to pull of this unparalleled heist.

If a Democrat is in the White House, being forced to choose between the existence of the United States or the existence of individual citizens will make them the visible target of the tsunami of dissatisfaction and fingerpointing that is going to exist for several years, even though they had nothing to do with its creation. That will further tarnish the Democratic brand, and by way of that, liberalism in general. The worst part is, that's the only choice that the president can make. If they bail out homeowners and let the economy crash, we all go under anyway. If they bail out the banking crooks and let the homeowners crash, they will save the country, but at the expense of looking like they only care about the big-moneyed business people instead of the "great unwashed" of the citizenry.

There is no good solution to this Gordian knot. Whoever is president gets the blame, and I'm afraid that most of our countrymen, with their "American Idol" attention spans and intellectual sophistication, will neither listen to nor understand explanations of how we got here and will focus their anger on the person who is our leader at that time.

I say let the republicans immolate themselves once and for all. If they are not in power, they will survive the coming crisis to come back and to loot our economy again. However, if they are in power, they have nobody to blame but their fellow republicans, and the simple act of performing the necessary triage to save the country at the expense of millions of citizens will be the biggest pair of cement overshoes in history.

Let's face it, even the brilliant Al Gore doesn't want to be president now, and it's most likely because he has a keen appreciation of the insolubility of the disaster we face.


Viva President McCain!