California's economic woes can do more damage to America's recovery than Greece's can do to Europe's. Yet which of the two may be getting a bailout?
If I were the governor of California, cursed with an insoluble budget crisis, and if I had asked the federal government for help and been rebuffed, and if I hailed from Europe and noticed that the European Union had agreed -- in principle at least -- to bail out Greece, I might be mumbling, "Vut gives?"
When Greece (a charming though relatively piddling land) comes calling in Brussels, it gets embraced (and lectured); when California (an economic powerhouse) comes calling in Washington, it gets, almost universally, the cold shoulder.
In September, 2009 Atlantic Monthly named 
