Wednesday, September 17, 2008

A Washinton Post Front Page Hack Job


The Washington Post is running a front page story that reads as an Obama press release. It is the worst piece of agenda journalism masked as news that I have yet seen. The story, "McCain Embraces Regulation After Many Years of Opposition," is explicitly premised on the latest Obama talking point that McCain is out of touch, vacilating on regulation of industry, and just now coming out in favor of greater regulation in the wake of the fall of AIG.

AIG is the insurer whose fiscal woes are wholly predicated on the sub-prime crisis and the fall of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Nowhere in Shearer's piece does he note that it was McCain who co-sponsored legislation in 2005 to tighten regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. You can read here McCain's remarks in support of that bill and warning of the crisis that is now upon us.

McCain's bill died in committee under the leadership of Chris Dodd, the Senator who was the greatest recipient of largesse from Fannie and Freddie. He is also the same Senator who got below market mortgages from Countrywide, an institution that was tied at the hip to Fannie and Freddie. There is not a single mention of any of this in Mr. Shearer's article.

I said in the post below, McCain needs to come out swinging on the issue of the Fannie / Freddie meltdown and its reverberations thoughout our economy. This was a Democratic debacle from day 1, and it was Democrats who protected Fannie and Freddie against stringent regulation proposed by the Bush Administration and then McCain, quite literally creating the current fiscal crisis. Obama didn't propose or co-sponsor any of that legislation - he was busy at the bank cashing checks from Fannie and Freddie. This absolute piece of fantasy on the front pages of the Washington Post is part of a concerted effort to paint McCain and the Republicans with the sins of the Democrats. If the Democrats are allowed to rewrite history on this, it could be a game changer. And as this tripe from WaPo shows, the Democrats have the full support and complicity of the MSM.

And as a final aside, this ridiculous article seems to take the position that all regulation is good while deregulation is a bad. To call this piece anti-capitalist in its bent would be a fair assessment. Indeed, it could have been penned by Karl Marx himself.

3 comments:

Ymarsakar said...

We'll see how tough McCain really is.

He says he will defend justice.

Newsflash. Can't defend justice if you allow your enemies, like Bush has, to string you, your allies, and your actions up for the mob.

Ymarsakar said...

Personally, I have more faith in Sarah Palin and Cindy McCain when it comes to the media and PR.

McCain allowed his support for more troops to be used by the media as a bat to hit Bush over the head with. He didn't mention counter-insurgency wasn't just "more troops" to differentiate it from Democrats. He just did what he always did. Be inflexible and hope something comes through.

But that inflexibility doesn't include refusing to make deals with people like Feingold, of course. There, McCain's flexible.

Anonymous said...

We all have our strong points - and our weak points. I suspect that McCain's weak point is his inability to see through legalese speak to ascertain the final results of a law. I understand his goal in McCain-Feingold. It's a good goal. But given the Constitution, it may be unattainable, and it may not even be desireable. He obviously didn't see that squelching one apparent abuse just opened the door for 10 others...

Maybe he's just too direct - and doesn't understand that others aren't. I have a problem with the "chess players" myself...but I'm not running for office...he is. No doubt he'll be able to hire some devious chess players...!!