Why Would Anyone Believe Hank Paulson?

If you want to understand how the world's leading economy managed to get into such a sorry state, a good place to begin is by taking a look at the head dunce in the Confederacy of Dunces known as the Bush Administration: the Secretary of the Peoples' Treasury, Henry Paulson.

For a man who claims that he won't be staying on as Secretary of the Treasury in the Obama Administration, Hank Paulson seems to be doing everything he can to suck up to the next president. Either that, or Paulson is a pathologic liar who has finally realized that he may have a tough time finding a new job in an economy that's heading south faster than a disoriented drug smuggler.

For at least the past 3 months Paulson has been opposed to any form of a government-sponsored (read "taxpayer's money") bailout of the automobile industry. I guess it's only a coincidence that Paulson has had a change of heart since President-elect Obama has publically stated that a few billion dollars of public money is vital to the economic health of the auto makers, the UAW, and the nation.

This is not, of course, the first time that Handout Hank has changed his mind to conform to which way the political wind happens to be blowing at any given moment. It does, however, represent a new personal record in the time required to make the transition from "what I said" to "what I really meant to say" to "what I'm saying now."

A long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (September, 2008 and Washington DC, to be more precise) Paulson was opposed to any type of federal meddling in the financial industry. Of course, that was before his current boss shoved the cost of the financial industry's $700 billion early Christmas present down the taxpayers' throats. Paulson, a former partner at the former Wall Street investment bank and stock brokerage firm formerly known as Lehman Brothers, immediately saw the error of his capitalist ways and became a tireless champion for the homeless of Wall Street.

Likewise, Sir Henry was initially not very keen on the idea of the government buying a hunk of the kingdom's private banks rather than forking over a few billion to take care of bad loans that those banks had been stupid enough to make in the first place. Fortunately, divine providence once again led Henry to see the wisdom of King George's newly-found compassion and generosity.

Not even the fickleness of the Fates themselves can explain the swiftness with which Honest Hank recognized the unsoundness of his belief that only incompetent bankers should drink from the sacred Fountain of Eternal Bailouts. In a reversal of position the likes of which have not been seen since Saul of Tarsus became a free agent on the road to Damascus, the brave Secretary has taken the admonition of our Savior to "spread the wealth around" into his heart and, even as you read these words, will spread some of that wealth at the unwashed feet of GE Capital, GMAC, and American Express.

Let us give thanks that, like Shakespeare's Brutus, Hank Paulson is an honorable man.