Bush Addresses Nation, Invites Obama and McCain to White House

Here’s Salon‘s Andrew Leonard’s take on it: “As a rule, presidents in moments of national crisis aim to reassure a nervous populace. But on Wednesday night, Bush faced a unique challenge — convincing his country that the United States is in such dire straits that we have no choice but to expeditiously enact the Paulson plan to spend as much $700 billion ‘so banks and other financial institutions can avoid collapse.’ So — this was no time to channel the ghost of FDR and tell us that the only thing to fear is fear itself. Instead, we were told that we should be fearful, that the ‘situation is becoming more precarious by the day’ and that ‘the market is not functioning properly, there is a widespread loss of confidence and major sectors of American industry are in danger of shutting down.’ Yikes!”