Bush uses fear to push bailout!

George W. Bush is up to his old tricks.

Last night he warned us that the economy is in danger and said there's no time to examine the $700 billion bailout's fine print. We have to act immediately.

Haven't we heard this before?

In 2001 President Bush used the same argument to get a $1.3 trillion tax cut, 50% of which went to the richest 1 % of income earners averaging $1.5 million a year.

He got his tax cuts, the economy tanked, inequality soared and our $5.2 trillion surplus evaporated.

He used the same line about immediate danger from Iraq in 2002 and 2003.

He got his war, but no weapons of mass destruction or nuclear capacity were found. There were no flowers for liberators or oil revenues to pay for the war either. But Iran got a new ally next door. More than 4,000 U.S, soldiers lost their lives and more than 30,000 have been wounded. And we ended up with one heck of a bill... which is still growing.

He used the same line earlier this year to seek a new round of tax rebates. We've lost 660,000 jobs and the financial markets have collapsed.

There have been an awful lot of emergencies on GW's watch! And his solutions just haven't turned out as advertised, although the Haliburtons of the world have prospered from Bagdad to New Orleans.

We've had almost eight full years of the politics of fear.

Let's call the President's bluff and not act in haste.

Congress needs to take the time to make sure that its rescue plan protects taxpayers, homeowners, retirees and citizens. It needs to safeguard the long term economic interests of the nation and not simply those of the Wall Street buccaneers who gambled with the all of our money and lost!

Republicans embrace fear and terror

In the darkest days of the depression with fascism on the march in Europe, Franklin Roosevelt urged his countrymen to resist succumbing to “...nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror.”

Paul Krugman contrasts Roosevelt's call to action to that of the Republican presidential candidates who have made fear and "unreasonable, unjustified terror" the "centerpiece of their campaigns."

From Giuliani to Huckabee they offer no vision of the future or solutions to the nation's problems. Their platform is one of fear of terrorists, fear of immigrants, fear of cities, fear of secularists, etc.

As a nation we love to celebrate the "greatest generation." We forget that their greatest contribution was to embrace Roosevelt's basic truth from his first Inaugural address that "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself...."

Read the entire column.

Olbermann Questions London Bomb Scare

"...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days."

Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address, 1932 .