bailout. Jon Talton

So what did Americans really get when Congress approved a bill giving the Treasury power to spend some $700 billion to stem the financial panic? It's becoming clear that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has mishandled the crisis in typical Bushian fashion. First with incompetence, by allowing the investment banking sector he came from to march over the edge of the abyss over the past year, long after it the cataclysmic risks to the system were clear. Then, in mad improvisation, he allowed Lehman to fail. He refused congressional suggestions of a direct capital infusion into the banks — until it was clear it "buy toxic debt" scheme wasn't working and Britain and the EU led the way with direct infusions. Brownie, call your office.

Also typically Bushian was the stampede to act, on a bailout plan with no oversight that would have given Paulson unprecedented power. Iraq, anyone. Congress made some oversight improvements, and Obama has made it clear he will alter the "rescue" further if he wins the White House. But everybody had a gun to his or her head to "do something" as the markets collapsed.

Of course, we're not dealing with drowning poor, black folks in NOLA, here. So ultimately, the administration was willing to take any "socialist" action to save its wealthy friends in the investment banks, the hedge funds, etc. So maybe the Brownie analogy is not quite right. Yet we should be on guard. Remember another hallmark of Bush governance: enriching the politically connected and powerful through privatization. How could that happen in the "financial rescue"?

Now it's becoming clear