Something very scary happened today. I heard Mike Huckabee on NPR talking about the bailout -- and I agreed with what he said on the subject. Now that I've reserached it further I still agree with him -- so much that I can barely restrain from shouting "Amen, Brother!"

Frankly, I’m disappointed and disgusted . . . as I watch them attempt to strong-arm a bailout of some of America’s biggest corporations by asking the taxpayers to suck up the staggering results of the hubris, greed, and arrogance of those who sought to make a quick buck by throwing the dice. They lost, but want the rest of us to cover their bets so they won’t be effected in their lavish lifestyles as they figure out how to spend their tens of millions and in some cases, hundreds of millions in bonuses and compensation which was their reward for not only sinking their companies, but basically doing the same to the entire American economy.

This is not money that Congress is risking from THEIR pockets or future, but ours. Many if not most of us have already experienced lost value on our homes, retirement accounts, and pensions. Now they’d like for us to assume some further risks so they won’t have to.
What happened to the “free market” idea? Is that only our view when we WIN and when we LOSE, we ask the government to come in and take away the pain? If you are a small business owner, is this the way it works at your place? When you have a bad month, a bad year, or face having to close, can you go up to Congress and get them to write YOU a fat check to take away your risk?

Now, I can look at this in a lot of different ways to minimize the panic that agreeing with a Republican causes in me -- It was bound to happen sooner or later that a Republican would be right about something, and I was against the bailout long before I read this; it's not like Huckabee talked me into it, and hey, I still disagreed vehemently with everything else he said -- but it's still scary. I'm a proud yellow dog Democrat like my paternal grandmother. I never heard her say anything kind about the GOP -- and I was shocked by how much this sweet old woman hated Nancy Reagan's guts -- until one day I heard her say she kind of liked Barbara Bush. It scared the heck out of me and I tried to get her back on track but she wouldn't back down on her admiration of this she-beast that spawned the SOB who tried his damndest to ruin this country.

As I feared it was all downhill for my grandmother from then on. And I guess it doesn't look good for me either. But I can't help it, and I won't lie. Mike Huckabee is right, the bailout is wrong.