Country Last

Yesterday morning John McCain said in New York City, where he paused for nearly 24 hours before rushing back to Washington, D.C., that "a crisis calls for all hands on deck."

The truth of that folksy aphorism may be debatable, but what's non-debatable is that, at the very least, it presumes a full deck, which McCain clearly isn't playing with any longer. Not, that is, if he ever had "Country First" on what's left of his scheming mind.

Just where are we? Zimbabwe? What a farce. What an absolute political farce of Third World distinction.

Here's a man who self-confessed that he understands less than beans about economic complexities, yet he hurls himself into the epicenter of inscrutably high financial negotiations, resulting, naturally, in headlines such as, "Talks Implode During Day of Chaos."

As the New York Times reports this morning, when McCain and Barack Obama "trooped to the White House on Thursday afternoon, most signs pointed toward a bipartisan agreement on a grand compromise that could be accepted by all sides and signed into law by the weekend….

"It dissolved into a verbal brawl in the Cabinet Room of the White House, urgent warnings from the president and pleas from a Treasury secretary who knelt before the House speaker and appealed for her support."

McCain's work for the day was done. He had triumphantly provided cover for the return of right-wing politics, Neanderthal ideology and populist pabulum into the debate, after the adults had had their agreeable whack at it.

House Republicans needed a gimmick and God knows John McCain needed a gimmick -- and this was it: to label the entire rescue operation "as a step down the path to socialism."

After what capitalism has done to us, that sounds pretty good to me. And remember, if Newt Gingrich is opposed to the "grand compromise," if John Boehner is opposed to it, if the ranking member on the Senate banking committee, Richard Shelby, is opposed to it, then unquestionably it must have a lot going for it.

"McCain and the House Republicans are undercutting the Paulson plan, talking about a wholly different approach," said Barney Frank, who had been successfully resolving this mess until the volcanic Mr. McCain stepped onto the scene. He added: "This is the presidential campaign of John McCain undermining what Hank Paulson tells us is essential for the country."

The essence of which House Republicans, quintessentially of course, are rebelling against in yet another populist uprising.

Not more than 12 hours before this writing (now 4:30am, Friday, well before today's markets or negotiations reopen) I would have bet any amount that McCain and his new pals in the lower house were making a grievous miscalculation -- that their political stunt of populist outrage would fall flat on its pandering face.

But now, already, I'm not so sure. Because they have overarching simplicity -- the electorate's best friend -- on their side.

Just light the torches and rail against the Wall Street moneychangers and warn, oddly and simultaneously, of impending socialism and largely leave it at that. What could be simpler? What other emotional strings need to be plucked?

All that talk of the vast credit market freezing up -- which is the unavoidable aftershock of a bailout implosion -- is just so damned, fussily complicated. Better to scream "Socialism!" like Herbert Hoover incarnate and thump one's chest and thereby save American civilization, which, if House Republicans and Mr. McCain have their way, soon won't be able to secure so much as a single car loan.

Is it "fair" to bail out the Wall Streeters? Of course it's not fair. But as responsible, realistic progressives such as Rep. Frank will tell you, this isn't about them. It's about us.

Still, there's no complexity on Earth that can't be politicized by the right with ruinous, populist oversimplification. And all the little populist receptors out there, I'm beginning to think, will eat it up. It seems the well of demagoguery really is bottomless.

John McCain and Congressional Republicans desperately needed to turn this economic crisis on its head; a Democratic or "socialist" resolution simply could not be tolerated, for wholly political reasons. They're succeeding, I'm afraid.

At least Herbert Hoover did what he did -- which was precious little -- in response to the early 1930s crisis out of principles. Blockheaded intransigence, too, but principles nevertheless. Can we really say the same for John McCain?