As part of the desperate, scorched-earth tactics used (hopefully) by the opponents of the "bankruptcy reform" measure currently before Congress, a sweetheart loan made by MBNA to a powerful Congressman is being hyped. To summarize, Rep. Moran (D.-VA), who had run up some Smythian debts on his credit cards, was able to get a large, relatively low-interest loan against his home just before he signed on to sponsor the proposed law. The suspicious timing of the loan has caught the attention of the bill's opponents, who hope to focus on the budding scandal as an exemplification of everything wrong with the law. To which I add, DUH !!! This measure is not going to get passed because our elected officials carefully and scrupulously weighed argument and counter-argument on the problem of increased bankruptcy filings, and came up with this bill. Its going to pass because the credit card industry bribed (err, I mean contributed to) an overwhelming majority in both houses of Congress, as well as to the President, who, when he wasn't campaigning two years ago out of the back pocket of Enron and the oil companies, was practically giving monicas to MBNA and Providian. And so endeth this evening's civics lesson....