The administration is now claiming that the New York Times got it wrong the other day when it reported that the President opposes new “cramdown” legislation, which would authorize bankruptcy judges to force banks to reduce principal on mortgages in some circumstances.
The administration is not opposed to new legislation, it says; it’s just not supporting it, either. You see? All the difference in the world: it’s not like you need any strong Presidential leadership to get something through the Senate.
As a high-ranking Treasury Department official said a couple of weeks ago, “If it’s okay with B of A and Chase, then it’s okay with us.” It is not known at this point whether the Department has become an official subsidiary.
You DON’T need strong Presidential leadership to get legislation through the Senate. What you need is to have legislation sufficiently bad that Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu, Lincoln, and Bayh will vote for cloture on it.