I can’t wait to hear how the McCain cam­paign walks this one back:

Couric: Why, in your view, is Roe v. Wade a bad decision?

Sarah Palin: I think it should be a states’ issue not a fed­eral government-​mandated, man­dat­ing yes or no on such an impor­tant issue. I’m, in that sense, a fed­er­al­ist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and indi­vid­ual areas. Now, foun­da­tion­ally, also, though, it’s no secret that I’m pro-​life that I believe in a cul­ture of life is very impor­tant for this coun­try. Per­son­ally that’s what I would like to see, um, fur­ther embraced by America.

Couric: Do you think there’s an inher­ent right to pri­vacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.

Couric: The cor­ner­stone of Roe v. Wade.

Palin: I do.

Ben Smith links to an inter­view that Sarah Palin gave to Hugh Hewitt this after­noon. In it, after attack­ing Barack Obama for his views on abor­tion, she refers to

my posi­tion of just want­ing that cul­ture of life to be respected, and not want­ing gov­ern­ment to sanc­tion the idea of ending life.

Are we allowed to ask, then (or would it con­sti­tute more “gotcha journalism”?) if this means that Palin opposes the death penalty as well? From what I’ve seen around the inter­net, she would seem not to, but if you don’t want “government to sanc­tion the idea of ending life” doesn’t that mean you don’t want gov­ern­ment to sanc­tion the idea of ending life?

And yes, I know that the Repub­li­can Party has tried to hijack the phrase “culture of life” from the orig­i­nal sense in which Pope John Paul II deployed it. The pope did use it to oppose abor­tion but also to oppose the death penalty (and euthana­sia, and stem cell research). When the Repub­li­cans imported it into their 2004 plat­form, how­ever, they explic­itly endorsed the government’s right to impose the death penalty.

None of that really mat­ters, though, since in the second part of that sen­tence Palin is unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally clear about the role gov­ern­ment should (not) have in ending life. Do I believe that Palin really opposes the death penalty? Of course not, though it would be one of the few good things I could say about her if she did.

The first House vote on the bailout just failed, 208-225. Repub­li­can con­gress­men voted against it by a two-to-one margin. This would seem to be a prob­lem, not only for the rest of us, who will suffer for it, but also for Repub­li­can politicians.

So what do you do if you’re a Repub­li­can con­gress­man? Do you accept some respon­si­bil­ity for the fiasco? Of course not. You, the party of macho moose hunters and multi-​day snow­ma­chine racers, blame the tone of Nancy Pelosi’s pre-​vote speech:

Some mem­bers of the House GOP are blam­ing Speaker Pelosi’s hard-​edged par­ti­san speech for the loss.

“Progress had been marked by mag­namin­ity with Frank, and Hoyer … Hers (speech) had a par­ti­san tone,” said Rep. Adam Putnam.

Sud­denly the endur­ing pop­u­lar­ity of the Repub­li­can party makes com­plete sense to me: being a con­ser­v­a­tive means never having to take respon­si­bil­ity for anything.

P.S. I’d sure love to be there for the Boehner-​McCain phone call that is prob­a­bly hap­pen­ing, oh, right about now.

++++++++

Second Quick Update (#1 below): McCain’s cam­paign is giving it a whirl as well, blam­ing Pelosi’s tone and (sur­prise!) Obama for the House Republicans’ vote:

Where are we now?

+ Reports off the Hill say that a deal is done. $700B total, greater Con­gres­sional over­sight, restric­tions on exec­u­tive pay, no bank­ruptcy law changes, no money for afford­able hous­ing, the (use­less) House GOP insur­ance pro­posal stays in but only as an option, and, most impor­tantly, the gov­ern­ment gets equity war­rants in case the toxic assets really are as bad as every­one fears. Obama and McCain are both on board.

+ Paul Krug­man and Brad DeLong are now openly favor­ing Swedish-​style nation­al­iza­tion instead of the Paul­son plan–which, for the record, Yves Smith has been push­ing since the begin­ning–even though Krug­man, at least, rec­og­nizes that a nation­al­iza­tion plan is polit­i­cal poison until at least after the election.