The spin cycle is on in Washington, and it’s roaring at about a million rotations per minute. The picture some would have liked us to have of yesterday’s meeting at the White House is of a collegial group on the verge of shaking hands on a deal to save the world, suddenly broken up in rancor due to a bitter and cranky old John McCain. The reality that is emerging — albeit slowly, compared to the Democrats’ spin yesterday — is that there never was an agreement that was going to be approved by the House and Senate. What there was was a sort-of agreement between the Democratic leadership, President Bush, and Treasury Secretary Paulson. And amongst all of its other arguable weaknesses, it included a provision that could never win the broad support of House Republicans (and if Republicans don’t vote for it in good numbers, then rank and file Democrats are going to be very reluctant to hang their names on it too). The poison provision (reported on well at Hot Air this morning) was the plan to take some of the very likely profits that would come from eventually selling these taxpayer-acquired “toxic debts” and plow it into something called the Housing Trust Fund. The Housing Trust Fund is known to provide money to liberal activist groups like ACORN.

So, various talking heads have been saying stuff like, “The taxpayers might well make a profit on this deal.” That was always garbage: any money that comes back into the U.S. Treasury is going to be spent on more government, absent the most rock-solid legislative guarantees to the contrary. But to front-load the bill with a plan to siphon profits off to the likes of ACORN is shameless to a truly mind-boggling extent.

These are wild times, no doubt about it.

For another angle on opposition to this bill from House Republicans, tune in below (or at YouTube) to Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Michigan) and his passionate speech on the House floor yesterday (thanks to R.K. for the tip). (I believe that McCotter, by the way, is also an estimable Bob Dylan fan.)

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