McConnell, Dem Leaders Trade Barbs

We take it that things got a little frosty at the White House meeting on Wednesday with President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner. Afterward, McConnell charged that the bill, which will require big banks to pay into a fund from which bailout funds will be drawn in case of future emergencies, “will lead to endless taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street banks.” (McConnell may be taking his page from GOP strategist Frank Luntz, who penned a memo advising Republicans that “the single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout.") Pelosi said that charges like McConnell’s are “such a diversion from the facts that it’s almost laughable. It’s sad.” Reid said that “It’s obvious that the Republicans are saying no again.”