A great chance to re-assert Congressional authority and relevance

Posting at The Left Coaster, Paradox makes some astute and compelling points, arguing that now is NOT the time to ram legislation through to bail out the Republican Party BECAUSE legislation produced "fast and on the fly" is generally terrible, and we have overwhelming evidence of this administration's incompetence.

As a general rule anything Congress produces fast and on the fly is terrible legislation. As the Patriot Act so aptly demonstrates, out of nowhere vast powers and discretion were handed over without any deliberative thought or legislative processes at all. Legislation needs time to craft carefully, yet the panicked Bush administration is demanding what possibly could be a trillion dollars worth of legislation in just the next few days to save the global financial industry.

...

The whole political and ideological structure of conservatism lies in total ruins before us. Vast amounts of money and policy are at stake in somehow trying to clean up the incredible stinking mess, yet Bush and the Republicans are demanding all of the money to let their market philosophy off the hook without any new rules or safeguards in place, just hand over all of the dough now.

Now is not the time to argue how we got here, right, how convenient that if we don’t hand over our future for the next term you’ll put a gun to our head and say the world financial system will crash. Y’all said Saddam was the greatest threat ever, why should I believe you now?

Here is a great chance for Pelosi and Reid to re-assert Congressional authority and relevance, they don’t have to obstruct, not in the least, just not be lead by the nose to slam the little people with no accountability and no financial environment change moving forward. If in fact some huge bailout happens in the next forty-eight hours we can be precisely sure that has in fact happened.

Okay, so the situation is bad now. Don't make it worse simply for the sake of doing something quickly. PLEASE, Pelosi, Reid - take note.

My cynical sixth sense tells me that the republicans WILL politicize the issue. (What a surprise.) They will come up with a hastily drawn up scheme (perhaps incorporating crap they've wanted to get passed for years) and scare the democrats shirtless by threatening to accuse them of playing politics with the economy should they not acquiesce. We WILL get some crap legislation that will create FAR more problems than it will solve.