When I was a college student at Macalester College shortly after the Earth cooled, I studied political science with G. Theodore Mitau.  Ted Mitau was incredibly savvy, and we enjoyed his excitement with politics and his personal connections with liberal lions like Hubert Humphrey, Orville Freeman and Walter Mondale.  In addition, a fellow student in my international politics classes was an Ghanaian exchange student by the name of Kofi Annan.  It was a lively time.  One of the most fascinating notions Ted Mitau put forth was a great truism, perhaps a very old truism, but nevertheless great stuff for a college student: every politician in office is faced with the challenge of voting his or her conscience, or voting his or her constituents' wishes.  In other words, do people elect politicians because of the politicians' views or because the constituents believe they, the constituents, will direct the votes of the politicians?

We witnessed today congresspeople caving in to their constituents' opinions, however ill-informed they may be.  Millions of Americans sent emails and letters and made phone calls to their representatives saying in essence "this is a bad thing because it bails out Wall Street; don't pass it."  The House decided that it was important to obey The Will of the People, and voted down the bailout bill.  A cynic might say that the representatives needed the cover of a Wall Street crash in order to go against The Will of the People.  It would allow them the incredible luxury of not understanding the bill, and letting The Market make the decision. I truly doubt that the majority of American voters understand the rescue plan.  Indeed, the majority of our elected representatives probably don't fully grasp the fine points of the bill.

Well, The Market made the decision.  More than one trillion dollars disappeared from the pockets of Main Street so that Wall Street wouldn't get a 700 billion dollar rescue.  Since it will be two more days before the Congress can re-address the rescue plan, will there be a loss of a trillion dollars each day?

We need some profiles in courage here, folks - courage that was conspicuous by its absence today in the House.