Can’t express it any better than this, from Quin Hillyer of The American Spectator:
“Matters got worse when, after principled House members of the right and left combined to slow down the legislative stampede, the Senate decided to collectively play mob boss. By attaching this incredibly important and deservedly controversial bailout bill to not one but two utterly unrelated bills — one on mental health, and one on tax policy — the Senate stole the House’s constitutional prerogative to originate all revenue bills, used extraneous items as both bribe and blackmail to force the House’s hand, and muddied waters that needed clarifying.
“Meanwhile, the presidential campaign is marred, on one side, by a radical and utterly unaccomplished leftist ideologue joined by a serial plagiarist and exaggerator, and on the other side by a man temperamentally unsuited to the presidency joined by a running mate of high character but embarrassingly low familiarity with national affairs of state.
“Yes, this is bad. Actually, awful.”