What if the bailout still works without bipartisanship?

Republicans have been trotting around Washington for the last week warning that if Pres. Obama doesn't get bipartisan support for his bailout bill, the president alone will own the results. Republicans will be able to brand the president with the failure, since none of them had a hand in the decision.

Slipping past them, seemingly unnoticed, is the reverse argument. If it succeeds, Republicans would be on the wrong side of history yet again. Not only would they have owned the worst decisions of our generation, but they would be seen as erecting roadblocks on the road to recovery. Someone ought to point out that there's a fair amount of risk in that approach, too.

Sen. John McCain, in a deja vu moment for those of us who were finally beginning to put the campaign behind us, lectured Obama from the Capitol. You might get a bill signed, he warned, but it won't be bipartisan.

The Republican road to victory goes through a little town off the side of the road called Bipartisan. In unison, they've withheld their support from the House bill and all but about three for the Senate bill. The Democrats have the votes to pass the measures, but they won't be able to claim that the victories were bipartisan.

One thing guys...Americans don't need a bipartisan, they need a bailout. When you are drowning, you don't really care if the Coast Guard and Life Guard hold hands when they throw you a life raft. People are losing jobs at ridiculous rates. Families are losing homes. Life savings have evaporated in the market. And it's only getting worse.

Against this backdrop, Republicans think that it is important to hold out and deny the president bipartisanship because if the plan doesn't work, the Democrats alone will own the failure.

Again, another little factoid that slips past them in this argument; Republicans own the current failure. This isn't something we are trying to do; it's something we are trying to UNdo. To say that you can crap all over the place for eight years and tell the new guy to clean it up in two weeks or you own the pile is kind of ridiculous. We all know whose shit we are cleaning up.

All these arguments overlook a very real possibility, however. What if it works?

What if the economy is stimulated? What if people start going back to work? What if the rate of foreclosures stalls? What if banks begin lending? What if they created or saved 4 million jobs? What if any of those things happened? What if they all happened? What if they all happened and the victory wasn't bipartisan? What would Republicans say then? What would they do? I sure hope we have a chance to find out.