Hank Paulson claims that he needs the rest of the bailout money. After blowing the first $350 billion like it was nothing, Paulson went back on what he said earlier. Oh, and that whole thing about transparency that Paulson threw in? Yeah, that’s a joke. Fox Business Network is suing the Treasury Department because they haven’t responded to FOIA requests. Hank Paulson is about one step away from becoming an official enemy. The only thing saving him is that his butt is out the door in another month. Unfortunately, the people replacing him and Bush will probably be—at best—just as bad, and much more likely to be worse. Instead of abandoning the market to save free-market principles, the President should have, well, stuck to principles. But Bush punted and we’re going to pay.
Jim Manzi has a post with a retrospective of the past couple of months. His conclusion is that he still supports the bailout as the least bad of the available alternatives, but does not want to jump into the next round. Unfortunately, I’m afraid that cat’s out of the bag.
