Maine's two congressmen, Democrats Tom Allen and Mike Michaud, cast opposing votes Monday on crucial financial rescue legislation.

Allen voted in favor of the bill, which aimed to stabilize financial markets and thus keep credit flowing to Main Street. He got it right.

Michaud opposed the bill. He got it wrong.

Nobody liked the bill. One Republican lawmaker said it was "like a big cowpie with a little bit of marshmallow inside." Another called it a "crap sandwich."

And it was enormously unpopular with the public, which besieged congressional offices with demands to reject the legislation. Don't bail out the fat cats with our money, they said. How's that going to help us? As one columnist put it, it was Joe Sixpack against Gordon Gekko. And neither party's leadership helped pass the bill, offering tepid endorsements on the floor of the House prior to the vote.

Michaud said he didn't support the bill because it gave the treasury secretary too much authority to spend taxpayers' money without adequate safeguards. Well, an earlier version of the bill did, but that authority was dramatically limited in the legislation that faced a vote on Monday. Michaud's explanation doesn't pass the sniff test.

It's the obligation of our elected officials to lead, not follow. They must take difficult and sometimes unpopular positions in the face of public pressure. They should do this regardless of party affiliation and even threats to re-election and, if they don't have that kind of courage, then they don't deserve to be in Congress.

Michaud and others, both Democrat and Republican, placed politics over the public good on Monday with their votes against the financial rescue plan. Allen called out his colleagues on Monday, when he said that, "It is unconscionable that the House failed to reach consensus on legislation to stabilize financial markets as America stands on the brink of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s." We couldn't agree more.