To fix the problem, you had to fix the people

In recent days we've had a lot of hand wringing about how Republicans "need to listen to the Obama team" and "need to respond to their criticism".   We've even seen some editors here adopt that sort of stance.

Well, folks, not so long ago I suggested the Democrats do something which was , admittedly, an effort to gain a Republican "victory"; but also intended in good conscience to improve the nation's fortunes irregardless of the party holding control of Washington, DC. 

On September 23, 2008 I posted the following advice.

Some prominent Democrats must demonstrate a level of responsibility for this disaster before Republicans allow themselves to be roped into looking like die hard Dubya loyalists.

The quid: The chairman of the Senate and House Banking Committees---Chris Dodd and Barney Frank--must relinquish their chairmanships as a condition for Republican yes votes on the bailouts.    

And there's a completely nonpartisan reason for demanding this. In 2009 we will have a new President and a new Secretary of the Treasury. The executive branch will have fresh blood who did not create this debacle (perhaps they ignored it, but...whatever) 

The people who are hopelessly compromised by their roles in Congress must step aside as well to demonstrate to America that people on Capitol Hill get the same message 

Everyone---both parties---both branches of government---is going out the door who "managed" the banking system.

For equity's sake, we can have the ranking Republicans on each committee quit too.

America needs a fresh set of folks who will have the responsiblity for getting ourselves out of this mess. It can;t be the same people who created the mess. They now have zero credibility.

And America deserves both parties accepting a share of the blame for what went wrong.

Are the egos of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank more important than our economy's future?

As Spike Lee said, Do the Right Thing

Well, we know that the Democrats did not replace their Banking Committee chairmen and decided the same people who watched the ship sink would have some clue how to use a bailing bucket.

 At the point when I posted that the Dow was trading around 11,000. It is poised to open below 7,000 today and few think we've seen the hard bottom quite yet.    The Democratic Party had an opportunity to bring in a fresh legislative team to deal with this problem and we had an obligation to the public to force this to happen. The results are rather obvious. I won't belabor the deficiencies in Obama and Geithner's decisions to date; but if there was an opportunity to change market confidence; this opportunity was lost. And replacing the failed Congressional "leaders" would have played a huge role.  

There is no confidence in the economy at present; and the erratic behavior of Dodd and Frank have made matters worse. And will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Sure, the Democrats "won"   . But once in a awhile your opponents might be offering ideas that would work to your benefit.  I think I did.   But, I'd like to have an economy more than partisan pride.