With news of the latest stimulus package making its way through Washington, I just thought I'd toss out a reminder of GW's "HOPE NOW" mortgage assistance initiative. Remember this? In early December, when Bush debuted this scheme to supposedly help hundreds of thousands of mortgage holders (and he did so by handing out the wrong phone number)?

According to Barron's, HOPE NOW has helped less than 100 mortgage holders to date. That's it. But the official (fine print?) line of HOPE NOW is they can only help "less than 1/100th of a percent of the calls they receive." Even then, it doesn't stop them from claiming to help a whopping 5%.

None of this should shock anyone. This administration will concoct some phoney cure, send it up the flag pole filled with lies and false promises, the media soaks it in and broadcasts, the program does not deliver but no matter, people have long forgotten about it. Next.