THEY'RE BAAAACCCCKKKKK!

The pols in Washington that is and now let the games begin.

Refreshined after a well-deserved vacation, The Leader was off on the stump telling the nation hat a mess he inherited, how tough a task he faced, what a great job he was doing and if anything hasn't gone right, one should blame the Repubs and of course George Bush. In short, he was making a fool out of himself again which he is very good at lately. The public appears not to be buying any of it according to the polls but at least honesty is creeping in as the party itself has admitted to a triage approach to the coming election. Money will be denied to those candidates with little or no chance of winning. The prize for loyalty: your demise. Sorry about that ol' boy but sacrifices must be made. And while the Democrats engage in self-slaughter, the Republicans putter about arguing things like who's the real conservative. Nary a new idea has emerged. Ya gotta wonder.

There is some humor about, however. While The Leader speaks of more stimulus money, a report emerged this week that more than half of the previous package remains unspent because there are not enough federal workers around to process the distribution of the funds. Seems as though the regulations connected with the package, the rules governing things such as the enviormental impact, labor requirements (unions) and such make spending the stuff difficult. So I said to the wife, "Hey, what an opportunity! Head off to D.C. and show these idiots how a REAL American can spend money! Be close to the grand kids too. You only have about $400 billion to work with so it will be a temp job, but you can have some fun!"

I never knew she knew some of those words.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, it seems that the Euros have figured out that the stress test on the Euro banks was almost total crap which of course your ol' buddy, Charlie, had told you a month ago. As disclosed, exposure to soverign debt was dramatically understated and continues to be, again raising questions as to just how stable is that system over there. Fear not. The Germans and the French will take care of their own but there is going to be some wailing and knashing of teeth in Euroland in the coming months as the markets demand more and more fom the PIIGS. As we told you before, this is a long way from being over and, again, I fear the ride for us is just about to begin.

Finally, there was a wonderful picture in the Times today of Larry Summers bowing...yes, bowing to the Chinese foreign minister as they shook hands. Jeeze, the guy did every thing but tug at his forelock and hide his pigtail. The Chinese must have loved that image. How do you spell Kow Tow? Has it really come to that?

We get serious tomorrow.