Last week, Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner referred to the bailout — excuse me, financial rescue package — as a "crap sandwich." Now the Senate has provided Americans with a 6-foot crap hero (with fancy toppings!).

In a pitiably self-congratulatory news conference after the bailout vote, Senate leaders stood in wonderment of their own awe-inspiring character. What Americans learned, though, was that bribery is the only way to push a dreadful bill through the congressional birth canal. Funny, I missed that episode of "Schoolhouse Rock."

No one anticipates Cicero-like deliberations in Washington, of course, but how about a vote on the actual merits of the $700 billion bailout proposed by the secretary of the Treasury without the superfluous goodies?

Is the plan not expensive enough? Where did we come up with $700 billion, anyway? "It's not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number," a Treasury spokeswoman explained to Forbes.com. So you see, Washington employs the scrupulous bookkeeping practices of Enron.

When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson begged for nearly unlimited executive power via a three-page proposal, it was, fittingly, unacceptable. Yet once the Senate got its oily hands on the problem it helped create, the answer became a more than 400-page monstrosity, bulging with legislative non sequiturs.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claimed, "Inaction is not an option." Sen. Judd Gregg, D-N.H., who was actually referred to as the moneyman, told America, "This is not a time for rhetoric; it's a time for responsibility."

Responsibility? Does Gregg mean the inclusion of $6 million for the manufacturers of kids' wooden arrows? (Though you have to be impressed that somewhere, children still are shooting at things.) How about $128 million cost recovery for motor-racing tracks? Are the film and television industries in such desperate straits that they need $10 million? At least we know those perks were inducement for three votes.

But then what is the anxiety-ridden citizen to make of the $192 million headed the way of rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands? Or the $33 million in credits headed to business interests in the gorgeous American Samoa?

Perhaps these extras are vital — though subsidizing the recession-proof liquor industry seems a stretch — but it also means lawmakers were no longer voting on the virtues of the bailout alone. This is how business is done. But must it be done during a supposedly once-in-a-lifetime crisis?

The question now is: Will the House, which dramatically and unexpectedly shot down the bailout, follow suit?

"We need 100 Republican votes to pass this," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters after the Senate vote. So to assist these hardheaded Republicans in making up their minds on the Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, now the bill also is loaded with tax cuts and other conservative goodies.

For instance, it will keep about 20 million Americans from paying the alternative minimum tax while offering $8 billion in tax relief to victims of natural disasters in Texas, Louisiana and other areas.

Those worthwhile issues should be taken up separately. This was about a Treasury bailout of the mortgage industry that will have lasting consequences.

The argument will be made that these goodies are only scraps considering the big picture.

Perhaps. But then the vote also tells us that the Senate can be bought for scraps.

David Harsanyi is a columnist at The Denver Post and the author of "Nanny State." Visit his Web site at www.DavidHarsanyi.com. To find out more about David Harsanyi and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 THE DENVER POST

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.