Yeetle Box - Bush Takes the Bear By the Horns

Eager to show that he feels people’s pain, President Hoover, I mean, Bush, scuttled a political fundraising trip Thursday to tell the country his administration is working feverishly to calm turmoil in the financial markets - the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression.

And there's no Steinbeck alive to write about it, either.“The American people are concerned about the situation in our financial markets and our economy,” Bush said. "

And I share their concerns. I have money invested as well, you know. I feel your pain. Today, we are all Steinbecks.”

In brief formal remarks outside the Oval Office, Bush sought to show that the administration is moving swiftly and aggressively by taking “extraordinary measures.” Even superhuman measures, such as

• taking over mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac


• rescuing American International Group Inc. from bankruptcy by granting an emergency $85 billion loan that gives the government an 80 percent stake in the company


• convincing the Securities and Exchange Commission to tighten rules on short selling, the practice of betting that a stock will fall


• pumping $55 billion in temporary reserves into the markets after coordinated action with the central banks of other nations
  

“The American people can be sure we will continue to act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence,” the president said. "As we continue to take over the financial markets, the government will create a universal financial markets bureacracy at the taxpayers' expense, thereby stengthening and stabilizing investor confidence while destabilizing consumer confidence."

Bush did not specify what those steps might be. White House press secretary Dana Perino said she could not comment on them, either. “That’s something I’m not at liberty to talk about,” she said - which was odd since one would think, in this writer's opinion, that since American taxpayers now own the financial markets, we should know what those steps. Well, at least, for now.

The president plans to meet with Treasury Secretary Henry "Pat" Paulson Thursday and stay in regular touch with other economic advisers. The White House gave no other detail of how Bush is spending the day - just a meet and greet, beer, chips, and talk of the trickle down economics.

What Bush called “serious challenges” facing the markets have placed the White House in crisis mode - a mode the White House has mastered over Bush's two terms.

The YeetleMaster