Warren Buffet Shows the Way

While Chris Dodd et al in Congress arm-wrestle with Henry Paulson on how to invest taxpayer money to rescue the financial system, the 78-year-old sage of Omaha is putting $5 billion into saving Goldman Sachs and getting a nice deal for the money, preferred shares and a 10 percent annual dividend, thank you very much.

Wall Street, which respects Buffet in the extreme, will undoubtedly be buoyed by his move on the theory that the master investor, unlike the bipartisan bumblers in Washington, knows what he's doing and is taking action rather than debating about it.

It might settle the impasse if the government could persuade Buffet, who has more money than he will ever need and plans to leave most of it to charity, to come to Washington and help oversee the $700 billion portfolio that taxpayers are being urged to acquire.

That would inspire confidence well beyond Wall Street.