Barack Obama, appearing Monday at his latest Roman triumph (this one in Denver) delivered yet another chalky-sweet spoonful of his patented pink bismuth for America’s upset tummy.

The cure for what ails us?

“We need a president who will fight for the Middle Class every single day. From the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed he’s going to be thinking about you. How to make your life better, how to live out your American Dream.”

Jesus Christ! This guy may specialize in fellating our sense of optimism, but even I know that I won’t be on his mind from the first sip of coffee until his head hits the pillow. I mean, does he think America won’t at least give him a fifteen minute break once a day to try and fuck that sourpuss off of Michelle?

Obama’s ceaseless repetition of his own Mary Tyler Moore theme, his hypnotic incantations of hope and a better tomorrow, are facing their first real test with the Wall Street financial collapse/meltdown/crater (choose the imagery that makes you shit your pants the least). Before, it was just Iraq, a softening economy, and a retard in the Oval Office. We’d gotten used to all that. Now, with a freshly minted catastrophe that will still be walloping us when the next president takes the reigns, it’s put up or shut up time for the candidates. Neither seems prepared to do either.

McCain’s response was to pretend to suspend his campaign for a couple of hours, to fly back to Washington and wander the corridors of power, maybe check and see if you can really hear people whispering from across the room if you stand at the right spot in the Capital rotunda, then declare that victory was in sight and dramatically attend the debate he never intended to skip. If the senator somehow managed to interject something valuable into the bailout deliberations, maybe a life lesson that he learned while he was a prisoner in Hanoi, he has thus far not reported it to us.

Obama has likewise said nothing we haven’t heard ad nauseum since he began running for president at the 2004 Democratic convention. Blood oozes from every cell of his heart for working families, for the man who has to catch a bus before dawn to go shovel coal into Mainstreet’s boilers, for that mother with the small child who turns tricks just so her son can afford the blazer for his Catholic school uniform (that woman deserves free pap smears!). But when it comes to particulars, the guy has the depth of a lolcat. “Change? I gots it.”

Stimulus packages? Yup. Drilling and windmills? Oh, yup. Fiscal regulation, too! Yup yup yup! If you’ve got a dream, Obama’s heard of it and is gonna hop right on it when he gets to the White House. But he’s in lockstep with the Republicans In not wanting to point fingers during the present catastrophe. “Now is the time for mucking in with the enemy and filling sandbags! Come on, Washington! Let’s build that levy together! Kumbayyah, my Lord, Kumbay…”

But waitaminit, someone’s taken bipartisanship into their own hands! Why…it’s CONGRESS! Democrats and Republicans joining together to deliver a collective “fuck you” to the White House and its future occupant!

With the killer asteroid only moments away and President Bruce Willis demanding that mission control let him set off the damn nuke, the House sent up a collective “meh” and chose to let planet earth sweat it out while they took Rosh Hashana off. Turns out Armageddon won’t be as easy to shove down their throats this time.

Was the notion that you can actually say “no” to a $700 billion Cleveland Steamer suggested at all by Barack Obama? The Chosen Son seemed willing to take whatever it was that Bush, Paulson and Bernanke were shoveling with little complaint, so long as he could appear presidential, which meant joining in on the panic and not asking a hell of a lot of questions.

Obama must be kicking himself right now, seeing how well disobeying the program plays with the public. “I had no idea that not agreeing with the most unpopular move yet by the most loathed man in America was an option!”

You can bet that at this moment the Obama campaign is engaged in a Human Genome-type project trying to crack the significance of both taking a stand and backing it with a career-threatening vote. I think they’ll find that it’s not the kind of thing their candidate can make up for with one of his generic pep rallies. But that’s Obama: If the moment doesn’t offer the opportunity for sap, he doesn’t bring the waffles.

Golly, how does the richest nation in the world come within spitting distance of a depression almost overnight? This revealing article that appeared in BussinessWeek just as Henry Paulson took the reigns as SecTrej should shed some light. A few choice blurbs:

“Think of Paulson as Mr. Risk. He’s one of the key architects of a more daring Wall Street, where securities firms are taking greater and greater chances in their pursuit of profits. “

“Clearly, Paulson isn’t scared by debt and risk-taking (…) Facing intense competition from around the world, the only way the American economy can thrive is through risk-taking.”

And of course:

“Paulson is known as an exceedingly effective communicator. If he can translate Wall Street’s language of speculation into something the public and politicians understand, the President’s gamble in appointing him will pay off for everyone.”

“Give me every fucking penny you’ve got or planet earth dies!!” Is that effective enough communication for you?