Obama knew he had to pass that bill ASAP.
1. Didn't want people to know what was in it.
2. Wanted to pass it while he still had massive popularity.
3. Needed to pass it before the crisis ebbed.
http://www.rightklik.net/

IT WAS AN "EMERGENCY"! IT HAD TO PASS! PEOPLE ARE STARVING! DON'T READ IT! PASS IT!

So I'll sign the EMERGENCY legislation FOUR FUCKING DAYS LATER, after traveling over 2/3's of the country with my massive presidential caravan. Spewing large amounts of carbon as I go.

Any and everybody who has ever walked down a carnival midway knows what happened last week.

Walking down the midway the barkers DON'T say things like:
"Hello, this might interest you...but you should think about whether it is worth your hard-earned cash"

NOPE

The barkers SHOUT things like this:
"Hurry hurry hurry...step right up...this is the best show in the world, but you've got to get inside NOW...hurry, just $5.00...HURRY!!""

and so on. A successful barker at a carnival creates a fever-pitch with NO TIME available to T-H-I-N-K.

America...home of the Rubes

When the government wants to steal your liberties, they are not going to tell you or ask you. They will do it quickly and in the dark of the night.

Besides, Rightklik is right. He needed to act before the crisis was gone. As Rahm said, "We cannot waste a crisis."

The economy is showing signs of recovery. Any more time pasts, and basic capitalistic principles would kick in and the market would correct itself without governmental intervention.

http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/

Remember when John McCain excluded Michelle Malkin from a Press Conference Call because she was deemed too much of a fringe figure?

Hey, that's pretty good. With every economist in the country (world) saying the economy won't recover until the second half of 2009, or into 2010, with many saying even years after that, Obama is the only one who knew it would recover this month and rushed to get the bill passed before anyone realized it.

If he's really that much of a genius, maybe you should start listening to him.

Another reason it had to be rushed through the Senate but not to the President's desk:

Senator Burris' vote was needed to get this Obamination passed, and the Dem leadership knew his presence was not long for this world. That made things very urgent.

Brian, your comment makes no sense at all. Only the dumbest individuals (admittedly there are plenty of them)would think that the "stimulus" would work overnight. The timing you mentioned makes my point. The economy is expected to recover (on its own) later this year or early next year. If that happens Obama will claim that in the months since his spending bill was enacted it made a difference. They had to pass it early enough in the year that he could convince voters it had made a difference and was responsible for whatever happens in 2009/10. I happen to believe the economy will recover with or without the bill. I just think that with the bill our longterm problems will be magnified a hundred fold and the power grab by the federal government in some provisions of the bill are downright scary.

I mentioned this was one more reason. I already blogged about the main reasons -- that it had to be rushed so that no one could read it and because the more the public learned about it the less they liked it.

Lorie, your post last week was about how retail sales rebounded in January, and that's why Obama's been trying to rush the stimulus through. So don't now go pretending that you think he's "rushing" it through because the economy might pick up 6-18 months from now. If that were the case, there's no "rush" involved.