The leading House Republican claims the Republicans sank the bailout because they didn't like Pelosi's speech. Really? They sent the Dow down 777 points or 7% and cost the entire stock market roughly $1 trillion because they didn't like Pelosi's speech.

I just don't think the Republicans are that vindictive and misguided. So why'd they do it?

Ryan is making sense. No one would trash the American economy to spite Pelosi, but they might do it to get elected.

Here's the big picture. Bush and ultra-free market Republicans opposed regulation of the financial and mortgage industry for years. Then comes the time to pay the piper. Paulson does his best to clean up the mess, but it gets totally out of hand.

The economy is in real danger as Paulson, every banker, and Wall Street knows. They beg Congress for help (and Bush and Cheney join in—they hate it but they are desperate.)

Now the Democrats don't like Wall Street, don't like the deregulators who made the mess, hate Bush and Cheney, and know their constituents hate the bailout. But they see the danger. So they get a couple of compromises to protect tax payers, and then 60% of them sign on. But they don't want to all sign on because, like Republican Ryan says, everybody wants the other guy to vote for it, and the Dems don't want to do all the voting for it while the Republicans point their fingers at them and call them big spenders.

But the Republicans—more than 2/3 of them voted against it. They had said they would deliver 77 votes for, which would have been only 39% for it, compared with the Democrat's 60% for it, and they would not even do that to save the economy.