Well, I think I know what Rove's October Surprise is...

[backscatter712]

We're now seeing the early stages of this drama. The economy suddenly takes a crap, with bank failures and such, and Bushco, having planned months in advance, rolls out his legislation on a Shock Doctrine wave, demanding dictatorial power and 700 billion bucks of taxpayer money, or DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! THE ECONOMY COLLAPSES!!!

The Democrats, and even some Republicans in Congress, wisely reject this first bill, demanding some oversight, and things like help for the middle class in the form of foreclosure reform (in other words, allow a bankruptcy or foreclosure judge to rewrite the mortgage so that payments are lower, interest hikes don't sent monthly payment amounts into the stratosphere, and generally make the mortgage sane enough that a normal person could pay it) as well as restricting bonuses and golden parachutes for executives of companies that have to be bailed out.

But just watch. The October Surprise is nothing other than a Rovian Bitchslap, engineered to happen right on the eve of election day.

Bush will be stubborn, he'll refuse any meaningful reforms, refuse to allow restrictions on executive pay, refuse to allow any help to go to Main Street instead of Wall Street, and he'll refuse to allow any meaningful oversight or checks and balances on Paulson - he'll demand that blank check.

This is not just Bush throwing a temper tantrum, this is engineered to put a rising tide of pressure on Congress, with the general idea that when the pressure's too high, Congress, led by Pelosi and Reid, will do a choreographed 1...2...3...CAVE!!!, giving in and letting Bush have almost everything he wants, right in the last week of October.

It'll be the same game as FISA, Kyl-Lieberman and the Iraq War supplemental funding. Bush throws a temper tantrum, eventually gets everything he wants after the Democrats cave in, and we'll be the victims of the Bitchslap.

Josh Marshall explained it first and explained it best here. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/209645.php

Stuff like the Swift Boat attacks on John Kerry and McCain's Celeb/P Diddy assault on Obama aren't really about the attacks themselves. In themselves, they're often too cartoonish to be believed in any literal sense. What they're about is smacking the other guy around and making him take it. There's no better way to demonstrate someone's lack of toughness or strength than to attack them and show they are either unwilling or unable to defend themselves -- thus the rough slang I used above. That not only makes the other guy look weak. It also transforms him into an object of contempt, which together are politically fatal. It's this meta-message of weakness that resonates far beyond the literal claims. And it's this that Democrats so often seem to miss -- explaining the factual inaccuracies of the claims, demanding that the attacks stop, all the while reinforcing the intended message of the attacks in the first place.

The entire idea, from the beginning, aside from the power grab and money grab, is to change the public perception of the Democratic Party from the dynamic, assertive, new and gutsy party of Barack Obama, to the milquetoast, cowardly, contemptuous old party of Alan Colmes.

I'm pretty sure Obama and his advisors understand how to deal with the Rovian Bitchslap - he came back brilliantly from a large swath of nasty attacks from McCain by brushing them off and counterattacking - you always want to retaliate to a Bitchslap with a right hook. I'm not sure if Reid and Pelosi understand why they've been getting punked by the Bush Administration. Either that, or they've been bought by the corporate lobby, and have decided that they get more out of being the "loyal, but ineffectual, bitchslapped opposition" then they would get if they helped take the reins from Bush.

Either way, it is paramount that we do not allow the Democratic Party to be bitchslapped. We cannot allow it. We know the consequences - we get angry and demoralized, the GOP bully brigade gets energized, our candidates drop like stones in the polls, and we might even lose the election if we are forced to take another bitchslap. Y'know what? I don't care if the bailout is delayed. If it's really as bad as the doomsayers say, then I say we let Wall Street have a $100 billion dollar, very-short-term shot in the arm, then agree to come back to the problem after the election is over, and the new President and Congress are sworn in. If it's not as bad as the doomsayers say, then we have no reason to let Bush have what he wants.

[Demeter]

1. Absolutely the Best Counteroffer Yet!

[backscatter712]

3. We definitely need some counteroffers.

Hell, we should deliberately throw a bill at Bush that he'll veto, then have Obama, Biden, and a huge line of surrogates, Congresscritters, and so on go on the talk show circuit and talk about how Bush is obstructing reform, obstructing help to the economy, to Wall Street, to Main Street, to the American People.

If we play this right, it could be Bush that's bitchslapped...

[PetrusMonsFormicarum]

2. The October Surprise I'd like to see

n/t

[backscatter712]

4. We could sell tickets to see that...

[ContinentalOp]

5. k+r nt

[Sulawesi]

6. Bitchslap is a sexist term....

[backscatter712]

9. It's the term Josh Marshall chose when he observed this phenomenon,

and yes, I do believe he chose "bitchslap" to describe it because it brings a rather crude image.

Maybe you could call it the Alan Colmes effect - Colmes is paid by FAUX Noise to appear every evening with Sean Hannity, specifically to be smacked around, but not fight back, so the audience sees him, and the Democratic Party by extension as weak and contemptible.

[cliffordu]

12. Only if YOU think women are b*tches

[Sulawesi]

13. LOL! touche!

[BrklynLiberal]

7. At this point, even if it costs me everything, I would sooner let them all sink,

rather than see yet another capitulation by the Dems in Congress!!!

So is this a lose-lose situation? Either the Dems capitulate to BushCo, or they deny the public a chance to
escape total economic annihilation?

[abumbyanyothername]

11. But here's the thing . . .

It's not total economic annihilation. We have some leverage here.

First off, the battle is not Republican vs. Democrats this time. It's the Federal Reserve vs. US (in both senses). Look at your money. It says across the top, "Federal Reserve Note." It says on the left something to the effect that this note is legal tender for all debts public and private -- which means, you cannot demand to be paid in gold, for example.

Second, if we let this debt balloon pop, we MAY lose our access to foreign markets. After all, they are the ones who hold our debt. This means we can't access oil, cars, TVs, computers, help desks with bad accents, etc. BUT, unlike the Great Depression, our food production is in pretty good shape, and WAY capable of getting even better (we can stop growing so much corn and soybeans and start growing food that is actually edible -- this will take labor by the way). So we will have to adjust our standard of living, but our quality of life might go up.

Third, we are not without chips in this poker game. Who the hell is China going to sell their stuff to if we don't buy it? Who will the house of Saud sell all their oil to if we stop buying it? In short, the world will have massive productive overcapacity if we collapse. So it is in China's and OPEC's interests to prop us up.

Finally, we have the dominant military in the world. I am not advising using it to "kick ass and take names" and make our creditors keep crediting. I am just saying that no one is going to invade us if we say "Sorry. Can't pay." And we have a LOT of room to cut our military budget.

What would the world look like post Federal Reserve?

1) USGOV would either default it's own debt, or demand substantial write downs and pay a partial payment.

2) USGOV would print it's own money. (Contrary to myth, it does not do this now. Google "Money as Debt" if you want a simple introduction.) This could be done in a way that inflates down the Fed Reserve money or we could just overtly default our debt. If we need more for national priorities we print more, if we need less (we are experiencing inflation) we withdraw and destroy some. Eventually even our elected officials begin to see that our money must more or less match the sum total value created by our collective labor. This would tend to eliminate or at least reduce war, as war is a lot of labor expended, but no clearly identifiable asset produced at the end. Imagine that, a true DEFENSE department.

3) Our money system would value productivity, not debt. If you produce something or some service that is useful, you get paid. If you get paid, you get to choose what goods or services you would want to use. The supercalifragilisticexpialidocious debt packages of the last decade would appear as laughable as they really are.

Who loses in this proposal? Investors and savers. Who wins? Everyone (even investors and savers). We put the focus on producing useful goods and services instead of running on a treadmill to constantly expand a monetary system that demands it, while running in a finite space.

[paparush]

8. What? You call a month before the election, the week Congress is supposed to recess,

on the heals of the Georgia/Russian war an October surprise?

SHOCKING!!!!!!!!!!!!

:sarcasm:

[iceman66]

10. That's a very good idea.

Give them just enough of a 'bailout' to carry them through the election, and not a penny more.

[MissMarple]

14. If this was poker, they have nothing but bluff.

I swear to God. Make them sweat blood. Smile and walk away.

They need to pay for the cleaning up, though. That might take some creative thinking. If this was high school, they would get no hall passes, no bathroom, no lunch....parents will be very late...sorry we forgot were we put you.