"McCain — more of a gambler than Obama — could take a big risk."

"While assuring the public and the financial markets that his administration will act forcefully and swiftly to deal with the crisis, he could decide that he must oppose the bailout as the panicked product of a discredited administration, an irresponsible Congress, and a feckless financial establishment, all of which got us into this fine mess."

William Kristol, stirring things up.

Read the whole thing. Who do you think was calling him on the telephone in paragraph 1?

A friend serving in the Bush administration called Sunday to try to talk me out of my doubts about the $700 billion financial bailout the administration was asking Congress to approve.

Paulson?

On the left-side column on the same page of the NYT, we have Paul Krugman, also sounding the alarm about the bailout, and Krugman has name "Paulson" 8 times. How many times does "Paulson" appear in Kristol's column? Zero!

The conclusion is obvious: Paulson was the friend of the phone, personally begging Kristol to support the plan, and he didn't. Shouldn't we be very worried?