Just the sort of rhetoric America needs to help these very delicate negotiations along. Compounding the nuance here is her reason for calling them unpatriotic: It’s not the fact that they’re holding out in the middle of a national emergency, it’s the fact that they neglected to show up for negotiations earlier in the week. Go ask Paul Kanjorski — Democrat Paul Kanjorski, who chairs the House Financial Services subcommittee on capital markets — whose fault that is. Then read Roll Call’s report about the Democrats sending eight negotiators to the table tonight when Paulson explicitly asked for two. We’re staring down the barrel of the worst disaster since Katrina or maybe even 9/11 and these people are playing douchebag psych-out games with each other. I can’t wait to see what this poll looks like next week.

The more I think about it, the more I have to believe Kristol’s wrong and things are (relatively) fine. They simply wouldn’t be jerking around this way if there really was an economic nuclear missile inbound. Click your ruby slippers together three times and repeat: They can’t be that stupid, they can’t be that stupid, they can’t be that stupid…