Unprotected Sex with Merrill Lynch

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Tom Friedman on the Imus Show this morning called the election situation in Israel a complete, bloody mess.

'course that phrase pretty much sums up what the Obama Administration has inherited, as well, in both foreign policy and the state of the economy.

And poor ol' Tom, he's reduced to staying home from the cocktail circuit with his head in his hands, dithering over whether to put his paycheck in Citibank or under the mattress.

At least he's got a paycheck.

Friedman tells us: be afraid, be very afraid. This is a national emergency we're in and people are acting as if it's business as usual....I find the grandstanding and partisan bickering appalling.

Well there we agree.

And as Friedman notes, the worst of it is, when contemplating the "banksters" who testified yesterday, they're a bunch of dopes. Bank of America, he says, was going along fine and then had unprotected sex with Merrill Lynch and the rails came off.

Friedman's solution is getting the heart that runs America pumping again, and that's the banking credit system.

So now what?

Friedman's willing to give Obama six months, a year to work through this current mess. Because, as he notes, this is not a test. This is real.

There's a whole lot of hysteria percolating right beneath the surface all over the place these days, as Friedman's commentary shows.

I take heart from looking at the totality of what the Obama Administration has already done. Obama promised his team would hit the ground running, and they have. Appalling last minute Bush directives have been overturned. A cabinet has been assembled.

Sure, if you listened to the dinosaur media, you'd think the only thing going on is the stimulus package and whether Drug-Rush will rule Republicanville.

But if you step back and take a deep breath, you'll see the same strategic thinking that sustained and grew the Obama campaign is now up and running in Washington.

And that's a good thing.
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UPDATE: Maybe part of the problem is the 5 percent factor.