What's the alternative?

Life is full of so-called Hobson's Choices. My history knowledge has faded enough that I don't remember who Hobson was, or how he had the discovery, but I do know what it means. I face it everyday, and I'm sure you do too.

A Hobson's Choice is the often-faced dilemma of picking between two equally bad alternatives. There is no good thing to do, but simply selecting the least worst thing to do.

That's what's facing Congress this week with the $700 billion bail-out of bad mortgage loans. As costly and hideous as the bail-out is, what does the alternative look like?

A complete crash of the world's financial system would not be a pretty sight. People are not steeled, as they were during the Great Depression of the 1930s, to saving and scrimping by. Americans today have never had to do without, or make do. They may have to select a less costly choice, but basically get what they want.

The liberal Democrats have treated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as personal piggybanks for years, funding whatever social schemes and dreams they wanted, and setting up lucrative sinecures for their buddies like Franklin Raines, James Johnson and Jamie Gorelick, when they needed a soft place to land.

The liberal orthodoxy was to get women and minority groups into home ownership, and wave the credit qualifications to do it. Fannie and Freddie bought the dubious loans from private lenders, which gave them the privilege of being the first ones to be bailed out in the current wave.

Franklin Raines, in particular, havested up huge salary and bonuses during his tenure there, as did Johnson and Gorelick. It was so odious that Al Gore had to pay the price for his friendship with Raines, and Obama had to remove Johnson from his vice presidential search committee, he was so tainted. Gorelick could well have caused 9/11, when as number two at the Department of Justice, she put a wall between the CIA and FBI to keep them from sharing information, crippling our national intelligence gathering capabilities. She was even able to cover for herself, when as a member of President Bush's task force, she could oversee the whitewashing of her role.

Now, we taxpayers are on the hook for $700 billion to cover the liberal's chicanery. You won't read that in the popular press.