The Bailout Blame Game

So the Wall Street bailout vote failed in the House of Representatives, with nearly two thirds of House Republicans voting against the bailout, despite many of those same House Republicans voicing public support for the proposed bailout deal. Interestingly, after the vote had failed, Republican House leaders were quick to blame Democrats – specifically Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi – for the failure of the bailout vote. According to Minority Leader John Boehner, “We could have gotten there today had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House.” Rep. Roy Blunt, the House Minority Whip, estimated that Pelosi’s speech changed the minds of a dozen Republicans who might otherwise have supported the plan.

Now obviously the Republicans are just trying to spin this mess by blaming their “hurt feelings” as the reason they coted against the bailout, and Rep. Barney Frank had perhaps my favorite soundbyte rebutting the Republican spin:

Told of the Pelosi-speech explanation, he challenged Republicans to tell him who the 12 offended members of their party are and he will “talk uncharacteristically nicely to them and tell them what wonderful people they are” — in exchange for them switching their votes back.

After the failed bailout vote, Sen. John McCain alternated between being defensive about his failed leadership of the bailout deal and going on the attack against Sen. Barack Obama, who McCain accused of wanting to “phone it in” when it came to the bailout:

“Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. It’s time to fix the problem,” the Arizona Republican said after the vote.

So wait…in the first line of his statement, Sen. McCain attacks Barack Obama and Democrats for infusing “unnecessary partisanship into the process,” but in his very next line, he says, “Now is not the time to fix the blame.” So if now’s not the time to fix blame, as Sen. McCain says, then why can’t he refrain from fixing blame on Democrats?