Weigel

ThinkProgress catches Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) finessing his position on TARP:

"Pronouncements were made [by the Bush administration] about how it was going to be used. It wasn’t used that way. TheObama administration expanded it and turned it into more of what Iwould characterize as a political slush fund in terms of the many usesof it." [...]

"It was wrong philosophically," Thune said. "How it was used and, in my view, misused is what I take issue with. "

I keep comparing the politics of TARP to the politics of Iraq. This sounds a lot like what an ambitious Democrat would say in 2006 about why he supported the war -- he was misled! It would have worked if people had listened to him! The differences are that 1) TARP is not actually turning out to be a disaster and 2) conservatives see the TARP vote as a make-or-break test of whether representatives take the threat to American capitalism seriously. Michele Bachmann refers to TARP as the start of "bailout nation." Thune claims bailout nation should have been allowed to exist, but perhaps be closer in size to Belgium than to Russia. Not good enough.