This is one of those absolutely stupefying moments that defies logic.

 

It's the kind of deliberate ignorance that should cause the Democratic base to vow to replace not just the Republican hacks on Capitol Hill who rubber stamped Bush policies and damaged this country but the intentionally clueless Demoratic "leadership" that has repeatedly caved to Bush and ill served the American people, especially Democratic voters.

 

The NYTimes reported: "It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.

"Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had made an urgent and unusual evening visit to Capitol Hill, and they were gathered around a conference table in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

" 'When you listened to him describe it you gulped,' said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

"As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, put it Friday morning on the ABC program "Good Morning America'" the congressional leaders were told "that we're literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally."

"Mr. Schumer added, "History was sort of hanging over it, like this was a moment."

"When Mr. Schumer described the meeting as "somber," Mr. Dodd cut in. "Somber doesn't begin to justify the words," he said. "We have never heard language like this."

" 'What you heard last evening,' he added, "is one of those rare moments, certainly rare in my experience here, is Democrats and Republicans deciding we need to work together quickly."

"Although Mr. Schumer, Mr. Dodd and other participants declined to repeat precisely what they were told by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Paulson, they said the two men described the financial system as effectively bound in a knot that was being pulled tighter and tighter by the day.

" 'You have the credit lines in America, which are the lifeblood of the economy, frozen.' Mr. Schumer said. 'That hasn't happened before. It's a brave new world. You are in uncharted territory, but the one thing you do know is you can't leave them frozen or the economy will just head south at a rapid rate.'

Where in the hell have these Democratic leaders been for the last seven years?  Where has their leadership been the past year and a half plus? 

Why didn't they listen and heed progressive economists like Dean Baker, Jared Bernstein, Paul Krugman, Joseph E. Stiglitz, James K. Galbraith, and others such as Nouriel Roubini?  Instead the Democratic leadership kowtowed to the so called "Democratic" aka Republican lite Bob Rubin and his ilk, who, with the Republican Reagan and both Bush regimes, Republicans Alan Greenspan and Phill Gramm and the Republican rubber stamp flunkies on Capitol Hill, helped create, support, and promote this financial disaster?

Not only have these progressive economists been sounding the alarm for a couple of years, but progressive bloggers and web sites have been screaming warnings for a long time. 

Instead, the arrogant Democratic leadership in the Senate and House deliberately chose to ignore all progressives warning about the housing bubble and the scamming of the morgage lenders and Wall Street crowd and now are supposedly startled by this disaster.

That's a crock of cow pies!

It seems that the permanent minority mind set of Democratic leaders, exemplified by their consistent caving to Bush and their Republican colleagues in Congress, are now "stunned" by the depth of this debacle that should have been no surprise if they had been listening to progressive economists, progressive financial experts and the progressive blogs and web sites.

And they have the hypocrisy and spinelessness to sit there and be "informed" about the devastation by Bernanke and Paulson, two Bush flunky foxes in the hen house who exacerbated this mess by ignoring the Wall Street perpetrators risky actions until it was too late, and are now trying to cover up the Bush regime's accountability for helping effect this financial catastrophe with their deregulatory, hands off policy for banks and Wall Street's avaricious, high risk, fraudulent practices.  In addition, they are considering bailing out the financial institution criminals who caused this "Great Depression" disaster of the 21st century.  What input do the taxpayers, who will foot the bill for a Bushite Herbert Hoover disaster, have in this?

While every Republican and Blue Dog Democrat who rubber stamped and enabled the criminal Bush regime to inflict damage on the US and its people should lose their seats, the so called Democratic leadership which has consistently caved to Bush and defied the American people, should also lose their leadership positions and their seats courtesy of Democratic voters

It's obvious that many progressive bloggers are certainly much wiser and smarter than Republicans in Congress, and they are more prescient, tough, wise, and smarter than many Democrats on Capitol Hill, especially those in leadership positions.  These bloggers should be running for seats in the House and Senate.