Do facts matter?
Thomas Sowell expresses his bewilderment over how Obama could be the one getting a bounce from the current crisis brought on by the Democrats.
Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”
Unfortunately, the future of this country, as well as the fate of the Western world, depends on how many people can be fooled on election day, just a few weeks from now.
Right now, the polls indicate that a whole lot of the people are being fooled a whole lot of the time.
The current financial bailout crisis has propelled Barack Obama back into a substantial lead over John McCain– which is astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis.
It raises the question: Do facts matter? Or is Obama’s rhetoric and the media’s spin enough to make facts irrelevant?
Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years– including the present year– denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.
It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today’s financial crisis.
Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago.
Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration “right-wing ideology” of “de-regulation” that set the stage for the financial crisis. Do facts matter?
Read the rest here.
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McCain has no one to blame but himself.. he said and did a few bizarre things during the last few weeks.. saying the fundamentals of the economy was sound then saying he really meant that American workers are sound (guess he had read the unemployment stats).. mouthed off saying the SEC chairman needed to be fired.. grandstanded by suspending his campaign (even though his folks still appeared on TV with the pundits).. put the debate on hold saying he was needed to help in DC.. then flew to MS and debated anyway.
He paints himself as a maverick but went along with the crowd (as did Obama)and voted for the bailout.
I am not saying that Obama is that much better.. he just came across as a bit cooler under pressure than McCain did.
I don’t like either one of these guys. I may vote libertarian?
The election is over, we are now going to have Obama as President. But something very interestig has taken place, that is the rise of Sarah Palin onto the national scene. She is now the standard bearer for the Conservative movement. They Reagan youth are going to need a leader and she is now the grizzled vet. She has adapted, improvised, and overcome. So a lot of McCain’s actions may have been reckless, but the Sarah Palin choice was abouve all the one that made this most sense.It was said not to long ago that the Republicans needed to go back into the wilderness to find themselves, well they did and it was Sarah Palin. It just is not her time, she just needed to learn and be known to the American people. Well mission accomplished. The Liberals are going to be facing a new type of Conservative, modern day Burkeans and Palin is now the leader of that movement. Whether she likes it or not. So with that in mind let’s get ready for war.
Bob, you’re absolutely right. McCain has handled the situation terribly. He probably could have capitalized on it if he had opposed the bailout and drove home the point that he had been pushing for reforms. I just don’t see how Obama is getting a bounce. Obama is the number two recipient of contributions from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and the Democrats were opposing any attempts to regulate them. How is Obama not being tied to them?
CT, I think it’s still a bit early to be counting McCain out. I never thought he had a chance in the Republican primaries. He’s got some big hurdles, but I don’t think the election is over yet.
>I just don't see how Obama is getting a bounce.
It must be from a general ignorance of the facts. The average person who doesn’t dig deep will obviously blame the president first and foremost. I’m shocked that McCain let Obama get away with slamming Bush and his policies of “deregulation” for the crisis at the debate. McCain either wanted to appear like he’s not taking sides, or he knows something we don’t know. Either way, his weak response to that charge didn’t come across well, and I hope he capitalizes on his push for reform while the Dems were denying anything was wrong with Fannie and Freddie at the next debate.
I think that there is plenty of blame to go around Casey. The New York Times looked at contributions from Fannie and Freddie’s boards of directors and lobbyists, who are technically not employees. That analysis found Fannie and Freddie-related contributors gave $169,000 to John McCain and his related committees, compared with $16,000 to Obama and his related committees. So their “employees” may have given more to Obama but their leaders gave more to McCain.
I am pretty disgusted with the whole thing.. there are no mavericks in congress.. well maybe Ron Paul is one.. it is just a bunch of political rhetoric.
I can’t help but sense something fishy about that (it is the NYT, after all) when McCain was among the ones calling for reform. But the possibility of it backfiring on him would explain why he hasn’t been coming out and swinging with that argument. It still doesn’t explain how the ones that opposed reform are now the ones seen as best suited to implement reform, though.