Talking to Each Other Would Be Nice

OK, I'm in a snarky mood this week. (Who isn't?) Gotta share this one:

According to a Roll Call story on Tuesday, the Bush Administration has had this bail-out plan ready to roll for weeks, and now is pressuring Congress to push it through in a matter of days.

Here's the offending paragraph: Fratto [deputy press secretary] insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.

I can understand that this thing would be a self-fulfilling prophecy if you talked about it in public before you had to. But if this were 1982 (I can't believe I'm saying this, since I hated the Reagan era and advocate sunshine at all levels), Ronald Reagan would have sat down weeks ago with House Speaker Tip O'Neill (a Dem) and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (also Dem). They would have had a little nip and a little chat and a little debate, and then O'Neill and Baker would have had a private nip and chat and debate with other critical Congressfolk, and when the plan became necessary most would have had time to research it and make thoughtful judgments.

Instead, everyone's working 28-hour days and running around fretting themselves into a frazzle, and we'll end up with legislation cobbled together by the exhausted and ill-informed. Whoever's the next president has got to stop this baloney. (Not the first word I thought of.)