Are you tired of being forced into having the courage of your convictions? Doesn't it really get under your skin when people expect you to take responsibility for things that are your responsibility? And isn't it just the worst when decisions that you have made in the past are remembered by people today?

Well, John McCain — head sensei for the Way of the Maverick — is went on Meet the Press this past weekend to tell you that there's another way!

Blame Henry Paulson!

David Gregory: One question about the bailout, the TARP. You voted for it. But you said that you were misled by Former Treasury Secretary Paulson. How so?

John McCain: We were all misled. We were all misled.

Yes! We were misled by Henry Paulson. All of us! And not just on the bailout, but on a multitude of things! Henry Paulson has been misleading Americans into a responsibility-free existence for years!

Harness the ancient wisdom of fearful Bedouin tribespeople to improve your life today! It's just that easy!

Try it on your boss…

Your Boss: You're more than an hour late to work this morning.

You: I was misled by Henry Paulson into believing that the physics governing time had been suspended.

Try it on your wife…

Your Wife: You're having sex with my sister!

You: I was misled by Henry Paulson into believing that you were wearing her skin as a ceremonial raiment.

You can even try it on your personal deity…

Your God: You have spent your entire life in the pursuit of debauchery and sinful self-gratification.

You: I was misled by Henry Paulson into believing that You valued orgiastic Bacchanalia and ecstatic pleasure as states of pure holiness.

Thanks, John McCain! Now we can all live the life of a Maverick!

Warning: Offer may not be good in Arizona.

As you know, the rumors have been all over the place. First it looked like he was out, and now they say he's still in. Of course the biggest question in either case is, how will the markets react? Well, that and will he go back to Jen? I guess all we can do is sit back and wait for Angelina to make a decision. And while we do that, why not enjoy these Daily Show videos about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke?

Slim Thug: Still a Boss

The list continues below.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 1oc.

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As if our nation's banks haven't suffered enough in the past two years, President Obama is considering a new tax to make up the costs of the Troubled Asset Relief Program…

The White House is considering a tax on financial institutions to ensure that taxpayers who bailed out banks get paid back, a senior administration official said Monday.

The law that created the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program empowered the president to ask Congress to recoup money if bailouts were not paid back in full. [...]

"Imposing new taxes on top of the increased regulatory costs will weaken the industry, just when the industry is helping lead the economic recovery," said Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, a bank lobbying group.

Exactly. Besides, if we make it more costly for billion-dollar financial institutions to stay in the business of screwing ordinary taxpayers, what incentive is there for ordinary taxpayers to keep working so they too can become billion-dollar financial institutions that screw ordinary taxpayers?

Wall Street CEO's just couldn't make it to the White House to talk to the president about how they should start loaning money to people on account of a low-hanging cloud. That may seem like a lame excuse to you, but that's just because you're wrong.

Click here to watch this full episode. The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

If you want to be something really scary this Halloween, why not dress as Neil Barofsky*, inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program? Neil's job involves emerging from his cave every few months, torturing the country with his terrifying numbers, and then slinking back into the darkness. Nobody knows what he eats to stay alive, or if he eats at all.

It's that time of year again, and Mr. Barofsky's latest report to Congress is spine-tingling per usual…

[Barofsky's report said that] "although several TARP recipients have repaid funds for what has widely been reported as a 17 percent profit, it is extremely unlikely that the taxpayers will see a full return on their TARP investments."

His report said some 50 billion dollars used to help avoid foreclosures "will yield no direct return." As for the investments in insurance giant AIG and auto giants General Motors and Chrysler, "full recovery is far from certain."

"The firms that were 'too big to fail' last October are in many cases bigger still," it added.

The report also says that the public no longer trusts the government to do things with money. That's not news, of course, but Neil Barofsky does not have cable in his lair.

^{*The ladies' version of this costume would be "sexy Neil Barofsky."}

If I told you I had a troubled asset relief program in my pocket, what would you say I had, aside from freakishly huge pockets?

"Well, Mary," you'd say, "Sounds to me like you have a program that's going to relieve people of troubled assets, whatever the heck those are." Bingo!

Except, according to a Congressional oversight panel, it kinda didn't work out that way…

[T]he Treasury has never actually used the program to buy assets, in part because it was faster to invest money directly into the nation's banks and in part because banks have not wanted to sell their problem loans and book the loss in their value.

Sounds like some misleading advertising on Treasury's part, maybe, but you have to admit it's understandable.

'Troubled Asset Not-Buying Program With Direct Investment Instead' would've made a lousy acronym.