MNpublius.com

An overall great piece on the bailout positions from Star Tribune’s Patricia Lopez:

Franken said he would have voted against the compromise bill and held out for additional oversight, re-regulation of markets and foreclosure aid for the ailing housing market.

Regulatory reform, he said, is a fundamental requirement of government, “not a nuisance to be eliminated in favor of Wild West profiteering.”

He would, Franken said, work for stronger oversight of corporations, an end to failed, voluntary regulation programs that allowed Wall Street to opt in or out of supervision; a temporary freeze on foreclosures and a requirement that lenders work with borrowers, “not set them up to be victims.”

Here’s where it gets funny though:

Coleman spokesman Mark Drake said Coleman opposed that first, rudimentary, three-page proposal, although he could not explain why Coleman had been quoted last week describing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as quarterbacks in need of support.

“They’re calling the play,” Coleman said in a story that appeared in the Morris Times last Wednesday. “And we have to run the play. We’re all there, the folks in the huddle and we’re working with them on the play, but we have to run the play.”

Coleman said earlier today that he opposed the original plan, but believes the current version has the necessary safeguards.

Coleman supported the original three-page bailout plan, after his two-day silence on the issue and got his talking points. Then Coleman talks football about it, then comes out and today says he was against the old plan. He says it has the “necessary safeguards.” It doesn’t, though. 

I almost feel bad about Coleman’s lack of understanding of this and having to rely almost completely on what other people are telling him to say. Well, I guess I feel bad for him in a “I feel bad for Sarah Palin” kind of way. 

Read the whole piece at the Star Tribune.