It is a sad commentary on the current lack of esteem accorded to our president that he has not, as the financial system collapses, appeared on national television to make a prime-time address easing people’s fears and making the case for his bailout proposal. Guess Bush figures that given how unpopular he is, he might as well stay out of the spotlight and let Paulson do his bidding — the treasury secretary has the benefit of having been, until this week, almost completely unknown to the American people.

—Dana Goldstein

Dana Goldstein, a former associate editor and writer at the Prospect, comes from a family of public-school educators. She received the Spencer Fellowship in Education Journalism, a Schwarz Fellowship at the New America Foundation, and a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellowship at the Nation Institute. Her journalism is regularly featured in Slate, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Beast, and other publications, and she is a staff writer at the Marshall Project.