Dave Lindorff always has a clear eye on Bush's convoluted maneuvering. Here's his take on the bailout: Iraq All Over Again: Bush, Paulson and Bernanke are Just Crying Wolf

A few tidbits:

...now they’re doing it again, this time claiming that economic Armageddon faces the US and even the global economy if Congress doesn’t hand over all power over the economy to the Secretary of the Treasury in absolute contravention of the most fundamental principle of the Constitution, which establishes that the budget be in the control of Congress. These guys are saying if Congress doesn’t vote to hand over $700 billion or more of taxpayer money to the Treasury to dole out to fat cat bankers, the resulting economic collapse will be on their heads.
But here’s the thing. Just as nobody else in the world was freaking out about Saddam Hussein’s alleged nuclear threat, nobody is particularly panicked about the US or the global economy. If investors, who are supposed to be all wise about things economic, were worried that the roof was about to cave in, they’d be selling stocks as fast as they could dial their brokers. And the institutional investors—those with the real inside information—not to mention the managements of companies, who really know the true state of affairs of their own firms—would be unloading shares at fire sale prices. The stock market would be falling like it fell in 1987, or, if what these administration con artists are claiming were really the case, even farther. That is to say, we’d be seeing a 3000-4000 point drop in the Dow.
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Let’s be honest: this is an artificial panic, or worse, an effort to create one. It’s not a real panic. When you have the president and the treasury secretary and the Fed chairman going around warning of a steep recession or a depression, you have to ask yourself why these guys are yelling “Fire!” in the theater. In a real crisis, President Franklin Roosevelt preached calm (“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”). This president says, “Be afraid. Real afraid!”