Many of the talking heads are spinning the following themes:

The bulls say:
The Market goes up over time, so many are calling bottoms
Hank and the ppt are busy and got Wall Streets back, plus they are tweaking oil to 100 before the election
Ben will not raise interest rates
Oil Prices are falling according to the master plan
Sentiment

The bears say:
Stagflation
Housing problems are not over
Unemployement will likely go higher
Manipulated Stats do not show the reality of the crisis
Market is overbought (or so it seems by certain measures)
The cycle off the lows is 25 days
Watch TV for bottom callers
several 300 point rallies with no sustained follow up

I would say this:

It is a great time to lose a lot of money and to gain a lot of experience.

The market is utterly confusing as we are on the verge of a major event that either will set the start of a bull market or the confirmation of a prolonged recession within a secular bear market.

My hat is off to the Big Elephants that made a killing with the airlines and financials in the last month

After suffering a bloody bear market rally and all the manipulations of the Paulson induced economy, we are facing financial disaster as most of the bullets were used trying to stop short selling and pushing oil down.
I used to believe in the free market economy and in efficient markets. Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson have changed all that.
We really need to see a big financial institution failure to really comprehend the depth of the crisis.
Lehman is looking like a good candidate; however, the powers that be will do anything in their power to save an institution.
In my opinion, I do not think it will trigger a systemic collapse. On the contrary, it would give confidence to investors seeing that there is transparency on the Street and not just a bailout of the fraternity buddies...