The End of the Casino Economy

As in the final reel of the old-fashioned Hollywood cliffhangers, it's a race against time. Will Congress stiffen its spine, face down Paulson's blackmail and tell him there'll be no $700 billion on his terms?

Will a decisive chunk of the American electorate decide that between a half-mad former POW tormented with PTSD and dying of melanoma and a stable, centrist, Harvard-educated half-black man, they'd better trust their basic instincts and go with the all-white nut who might well blow up the planet? Rush Limbaugh's line, also featured on the Wall Street Journal's September 22 editorial page, is that the real culprits in this crisis are the blacks. You see, the Community Reinvestment Act, designed in the Carter era to encourage minority homeownership, was pushed by Clinton, who coaxed into being the necessary subprime loans. The blacks took the subprime loans and then couldn't make the payments and set Wall Street on course for disaster.

People say hopefully that Obama is sharpening up his game. It's partly true. We're getting less of the high-flown paeans to hope, a bit more pith amid the wind. But since things are breaking his way, at least in these predebate days, he's a lot more demure than the edgy popular mood.

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