Cheap (and Expensive) Political Theater

Scholar and columnist Thomas Sowell has a column (March 24, 2009 -- alternate source) that should be required reading for those who think the previous administration is responsible for the meltdown in the housing industry and the associated difficulties in the economic sphere.  An excerpt:

    We are not yet a banana republic, though that is the direction in which some of our politicians are taking us - especially those politicians who make a lot of noise about "compassion" and "social justice."

    What makes this all the more painfully ironic is that it is precisely those members of Congress who have had the most to do with creating the risks that led to the current economic crisis who are making the most noise against others, and summoning people before their committee to be browbeaten and humiliated on nationwide television.

    No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney Frank to force banks and other financial institutions to reduce their mortgage lending standards, in order to meet government-set goals for more home ownership. Those lower mortgage lending standards are at the heart of the increased riskiness of the mortgage market and of the collapse of Wall Street securities based on those risky mortgages.

    Senator Christopher Dodd has played the same role in the Senate as Barney Frank played in the House of Representatives. Now both are summoning government employees and the officials of financial institutions before their committees to be lambasted in front of the media.

    Dodd and Frank know that the best defense is a good offense. Both know how hard it would be to defend their own roles in the housing debacle, so they go on the offensive against others who are in no position to reply in kind, given the vindictive powers of Congress.

It boggles my mind that people would rather ignore the truth and believe proven liars such as Frank and Dodd than do the simple research that puts the lie to their offensive rant.  Now they've elected a president and congress that are running this country directly to socialism.  Themselves willfully ignorant, they trust in big government rather than themselves.

"What Were You Thinking?"