"This is an emergency, there is a clear and present threat to our nation, everything could blow apart into a million pieces tomorrow, we must act now now now or there will be hell to pay, there is no time to bicker and argue about details like ‘who’s responsible for this’ or ‘how are we going to pay for this,’ the federal government must be immediately granted sweeping new supreme powers without oversight, and anyone who disagrees with me or questions me or seeks to modify my decisions is a traitor, and I know best because I am the president."

Hmmmm…where have I heard this before?

Oh yeah, now I remember. Yeah, it’s all coming back to me now.

Amazingly — amazingly — Bush seems to be doing it again. A president with less credibility than a turnip, the man responsible (along with anti-regulator John McCain, of course) for this entire mess, is now telling us that we’re in the midst of a crisis and only he knows how to solve it and we have no option but to agree with him or else we’re destroying the country. The amazing part is that Washington isn’t just laughing in his face and looking for someone actually qualified to handle the situation, they’re actually taking his proposal seriously and worried about their political future if they don’t unquestioningly obey our Dear Leader.

As Atrios puts it, "Any member of Congress who looks at the plan to give Hank unchecked power to transfer $700 billion from the Treasury to his friends’ companies and has any reaction other than ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me’ does not deserve to hold office."

His proposal, as far I can tell, is: it is not enough that the middle class pay for the highest deficit in our history and a three-trillion dollar war nobody wanted, it must now also help keep the ultra-wealthy Wall Street crowd from losing its yachts. This is, I hope (but can by no means be sure) the final insult to the American people by not just the worst president in history, but one of the worst Americans (which, as The Stranger in The Big Lebowski would put it, "which would put him high in the runnin’ for worst world-wide") in history.