The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2007

Kudos to Alan Reynolds ("Dissecting the Bailout Plan" op-ed, Dec. 10) for his accurate dissection of the president's disgraceful mortgage "bailout" plan. The only remotely possible reason for Secretary Henry Paulson to "jawbone" lenders into compliance would be to forestall truly catastrophic legislation stealing investors' collateral proposed by the likes of Sen. Hillary Clinton. If so, he needs to be much clearer about it. As it stands, it looks like yet another case of Bush & Co. being bullied by the New York Times's editorial page.

I would be amazed if legislation survived that prevented mortgage investors from suing banks who cave in to political pressure to sacrifice their property. The  Constitution, Article 1, Section 9, forbids changing the rules after the starting gun: "No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed."

JOHN R. GRAHAM

Sausalito, Calif.