Setting the Record Straight

My children have selective hearing. I could whisper the word “candy” and they’d come running from the opposite end of our house. When I tell them to clean their room they seem to need cochlear implants.

The media seems to have a similar problem when it comes to the housing crisis that triggered the current economic downturn. We can call it “selective reporting.”

Any time some Democrat blamed it on “Eight years of Bush’s failed economic policies” the media was there to help spread the word. Yet any mention of the role played by Democrats Chris Dodd, Barney Frank or Charles Schumer was ignored by the media. Were they afraid their Messiah wouldn’t have been elected had they reported the truth?

President Bush is a true gentleman and whether he will ever name names remains to be seen. Karl Rove is no longer a part of the administration, so he can name names. And he did.

The more the president pushed for reform, the more [Fannie and Freddie] bought. Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute and Charles Calomiris of the Columbia Business School suggest $1 trillion of this debt was subprime and “liar loans,” almost all bought between 2005 and 2007. This bulk-up in risky paper made it possible for banks to lend imprudently on a massive scale.

Some critics blame Mr. Bush because he supported broadening homeownership. But Mr. Bush’s goal was for people to own homes they could afford, not ones made accessible by reckless lenders who off-loaded their risk to GSEs.

The housing meltdown is largely a story of greed and irresponsibility made possible by government privilege. If Democrats had granted the Bush administration the regulatory powers it sought, the housing crisis wouldn’t be nearly as severe and the economy as a whole would be better off.

That’s why some mythmakers are so intent on denying that Mr. Bush worked to rein in the GSEs. But facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan used to say, and in this instance, the facts support Mr. Bush and offer a harsh judgment on key Democrats. Perhaps that explains why so many in the media haven’t told the real story. Read full article.

Something tells me the mainstream media won’t report any of this. If they hadn’t already lost credibility their silence would be stunning. Sadly, this is now just the way it is.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 5:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.