Seldom has America's governing elite been more united in response to a national challenge. The president, the secretary of the Treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve were adamant about the need for government to purchase illiquid assets that are clogging the arteries of the credit markets. The leadership of both parties in both houses of Congress, after some reasonable modifications, endorsed the plan. Both presidential candidates also supported it -- one suspending his campaign to push for it. Even young conservative firebrands in the House such as Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor, after gaining significant concessions, came to reluctantly embrace it.

The consensus included everyone who matters -- except 133 mainly conservative House Republicans, along with 95 Democrats, who combined to destroy it.

There can now be little doubt that Nancy Pelosi has an unrivaled record for lacking achievement. In retrospect, it seems incomprehensible that Democrats chose a grating, partisan San Francisco liberal to lead both parties in the House. During the bailout debate, Pelosi used her last breath to channel the shade of Henry Wallace, attacking conservative economics as a "right-wing ideology of anything goes, no supervision, no discipline, no regulation." When one thinks of the skills of the speaker of the House, rubbing your face in it before a vital vote is not usually high on the list. House conservatives were insulted -- then watched as some of Pelosi's committee chairmen and closest political associates voted against the bill. Seeing Democrats saving their political hides provided little encouragement for Republicans to risk their own.


That risk, in the current political environment, was not an easy one. Some House Republicans I talked with reported little sense of urgency among bankers and financial leaders in their own districts -- the real economy in many places has not reached the level of panic on Wall Street. Public reaction to the plan was overwhelmingly negative, which is not irrelevant to politicians facing the voters in about a month. And some ideological objections were deeply felt. "During the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution," said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) on the floor, "the slogan was 'Peace, land, and bread.' Today, you are being asked to choose between bread and freedom."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093002319.html