Plan N And The Sunday Shows

In a "wait, what?" moment on the Sunday shows this week, it wasn't an Obama administration spokesperson or Democratic Party legislator that brought up Plan N, but Republican Lindsey Graham.(h/t TPM)

Now, when Lindsey Graham starts sounding like Roubini, something's wrong. I'm not sure what his game here is, but I suspect this is a test balloon by the GOP Senate. We know the Democrats have been saying time and time again we can't nationalize the banks from a political standpoint, Obama's reason that there are just too many US banks for the so-called "Swedish Solution" to work.

Now, if Lindsey here has suddenly become a convert to logic, that's one thing. But I strongly suspect this is just GOP contrariness for the sake of being contrary. Remember the GOP plan: We're counting on the Obama economy to fail. Obama having to semi-nationalize the banks, while unavoidable in the long run, is still going to cause him to take a political hit and a serious one.

The plan here is to set up Obama as a failure, and have him take the blame for the banks going under when he does it. On the other hand, it's entirely possible the banks are telling their GOP buddies that an orderly bankruptcy now is better than a crazy, forced one later (ask GM about how that works.) And, there is a populist movement on the left for Plan N as well. Graham's public admission may mean there's a growing movement on the right to implement Plan N as well.

It may mean the GOP is now amenable to this, in which case it's time for Obama to set Plan N in motion.