Jon Stewart provides a great summary of what the hell happened this week in Washington DC.

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"The $700 billion dollar bailout bill: still dead. The world's credit markets: still constipated. The meltdown continues. Of course I'm not talking about the economy -- I'm talking about John McCain's campaign."

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  CNN's Christine Romans looks through the archives and finds that either the Bush administration was completely oblivious to the impending financial crisis, or were simply lying to the public. Watch and reach your own conclusion.

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ROMANS: It's about as dire a President can get on the economy.

PRES. BUSH: We're facing a choice between action and the real prospect of economic hardship for millions of Americans.

ROMANS: This from an administration that for months said the economy was vibrant, the financial system strong. The President didn't acknowledge 'storm clouds' until last December, By then, it was raining.

The truth hurts. Unfortunately, House Republicans are children who can't accept that and would rather see the Dow tank 700+ points than face reality.

  President Bush's doom and gloom speech about the economy last night reminded Jon Stewart of another speech Bush gave five years ago. Same script, different crisis.

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STEWART: This is so weird, the President standing there with the carpet and the little flaggy things behind him to tell us something really scary. It's not deja vu; that's French. Uhh... I guess I'm having a freedom memory.

BUSH (2003): My fellow citizens, events in Iraq have now reached the final days of deicison.

STEWART: That's right -- Iraq! Thank God I'm not having a synapse misfire. He gave this exact same speech five years ago. Which points do we want to hit? First things first...should we be scared...?

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  After 40 days of avoiding the press, John McCain finally held a press conference today to address the bailout proposal. After basically reiterating what Barack Obama said a few hours earlier, McCain took a few questions from the press and showed why he avoided them for so long.

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"I'm proud of her record, and so I want everybody to know that Carly Fiorina is a person that I admire and respect."

I'm sure Carly Fiorina is a nice lady, but the context in which the question was asked had to do with CEOs raking in millions of dollars, even as they leave their companies (and thus the economy) worse off than when they started. In other words, McCain employs and puts out there as the public face of his economic policy someone who embodies the very corrupt Wall St. practices McCain suddenly opposes. Change we can believe in? Hardly.

Check below the fold for a thorough accounting of Fiorina's tenure at HP. Read through some of the points and ask yourself: Is that a record worthy of admiration and respect?

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  Unlike John McCain, who hasn't held a press conference in 41 days, Barack Obama faced the press today to respond to Paulson and Bernanke's testimony on the proposed $700 billion Wall St. bailout. The Democratic candidate laid out clearly his short-term and long-term goals, and even took questions from the press afterwards. That's what we call real leadership, McCain.

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"This plan cannot be a welfare program for Wall St. executives. The power to spend $700 billion dollars of taxpayer money cannot be left to the discretion of one man no matter who he is or what party he is from. I have great respect for Secretary Paulson, but he cannot act alone."

Full transcript below the fold:

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  Last week, after the Wall Street crisis took center stage in the presidential campaign, John McCain began assailing the greed of corporate fat cats, blasting CEOs who "seem to escape the consequences." Reminded today by Meredith Viera that Carly Fiorina, as CEO of HP, walked away with over $40 million even after her tenure at the company was marked by tens of thousands of job losses and a 40% decline of shareholders stock value, John McCain insists that Fiorina did a heckuva job and played dumb on the details of her huge payout.

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Viera: You have said, bottom line, it's those fat cats. It's the greed of Wall Street. You promised to crack down on CEOs who walked away with huge severance packages. And yet the person who up until recently was your public face on your economic policy was Carly Fiorina. She's the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, she was fired in 2005, but she left with a $45 million dollar golden parachute while 20,000 of her employees were laid off. She  is an example of exactly the kind of person you say is at the root of the problem. How can you say that?

McCain: I don’t think so. … Because I think she did a good job as CEO in many respects. I don’t know the details of her compensation package. But she’s one of many advisers that I have.

Viera: But she did get a $45 million dollar golden parachute after being fired while 20,000 of her employees were laid off.

McCain: I have many of the people, but I do not know the details of what happened.

Are we really supposed to believe that McCain had no idea Fiorina was an epic failure at HP and still took home a huge $40 million dollar payout? Of course not. He just knows he can't say with a straight face that he chose her, knowing she symbolizes the very corporate greed and corruption he now rails against.

Barack Obama hit the stump today in Espanola, NM, and was relentless in his mockery of John McCain.

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"On Monday, he said the economy was fundamentally sound, and he was fundamentally wrong.

On Tuesday, he said the government should stand by and allow one of the nation’s largest insurers to collapse, putting the well-being of millions of Americans at risk. But by Wednesday, he changed his mind.

He said he would take on the ol’ boy network, but he seemed to forget that he took seven of the biggest lobbyists in Washington from that network and put them in charge of your campaign.

John McCain can’t decide whether he’s Barry Goldwater or Dennis Kucinich."