Power Failure

Remember when political mofos actually feared Dick Cheney? Not hate (which almost 90% of people do anyway) but feared, as in, "don't piss that guy off because I want to see my kid graduate?"

Well them days may be ova:

The vice president traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to silence a chorus of GOP complaints about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan. But House Republicans who walked into a closed-door meeting with Cheney steaming over the plan walked out just as angry, and they described what happened in between as both “a bloodbath” and “an unmitigated disaster.”

Texas Rep. Joe Barton took the unusual step of telling reporters gathered outside the Cannon Caucus Room that he had confronted Cheney “respectfully” about his concerns — a level of dissent Republicans once considered heresy under the Bush administration.

Another lawmaker present — who spoke on the condition of anonymity — said that Cheney, White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and economic policy adviser Keith Hennessey “were in worse shape when they left than when they came in.”

Cheney’s inability to turn around members of his own party said plenty about how congressional Republicans view the Bush White House these days — but maybe even more about their discomfort with a bailout plan many of them see as an attack on their free market principles.

Or maybe a little bit of both. The Bush Administration isn't that popular these days (the biggest evidence of this is the fact that John McCain is the GOP's nominee). And yes, this "economic solution" ranks right up there with Moves the Bush Administration Have Done That's Pissed Off Real Conservatives.

But if you think that means that the Era of Partisan Politics has ended, well...

Republican leaders are now hoping Democrats load the legislation with unrelated measures that would give them the political cover to oppose it, members and aides said. At the same time, party leaders are using back channels in the business community to gauge member support for a “clean” bill.

In other words: self-preservation is key, but party loyalty will always be the be around to muck things up.