Yeah, the deal going in was that it had to be bipartisan. If the Democrats wanted to they probably could of shaken an additional 12 votes, but by the time it became apparent that they were necessary it was clear that McCain failed to deliver his House faction there was no way out except to either own it or let it die. I think letting it die was obviously the better choice politically so I'm not surprised that's how it wound up, they are politicians and in the apportionment of blame the balance falls with the GOP for failing to deliver (they won serious concessions for their votes and fucking backed out) and with McCain for mucking the thing up by injecting the Prez campaign into an already delicate and messy situation. This thing is a big pile of shit, but at this point a bigtime bailout is the only way out and the only way to have a real bailout is if it is bipartisan. Until the McCain and the GOPers in the House get serious that's not going to happen.

Are you bad at math? More Republicans voted no than Democrats. Additionally, of the congress people who made public comments from the floor only about 25% of the Democrats who spoke were against the bill, the rest argued for it. On the Republican side it was almost the opposite. Then vote time came and they threw McCain under the bus (after getting most of their stupid concessions, it's totally nuts!). Whatever deal gets worked out next isn't going to be substantively different unless the Democrats do something surprising, which considering what they have to work with and the seriousness of the crisis may be the only way out of this.