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I’m trying to get my head around the Bush/Paulson mortgage plan, but in the meantime I was really amazed to watch the press go after Paulson and the lenders yesterday from the right. The first question asked at the press conference was “What do you say to all those homeowners who paid their mortgages on time and aren’t getting any help?” This was the running theme of the day, and it’s even the theme for an article in the Post today.

In the technical briefing that followed yesterday’s news conference, I was amazed to see that the financial reporters in the room clearly conceived of their readers as the “responsible” people who’d be outraged at the “bailout” (which, it should be clear, it is not). It never seemed to occur to anyone in the room, based on the questions they asked, that their readers might be facing foreclosure.