Gingrich and the GSEs

There's no doubt about it. As Bryan Preston alludes, the Dem/media establishment has a hit out on Newt over his creative description of lobbying efforts for Freddie Mac in the mid 2000s. Preston links an AP article posted on NPR:

Four people close to Freddie Mac say he was hired to strategize with his employer about identifying political friends on Capitol Hill who would help the company through a very difficult legislative environment. All four spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel matter freely.

Never mind who they were, why was that a 'difficult' time period? Why didn't NPR describe the difficulty?

Maybe it was because the 'difficulty' stemmed from allegations that former execs Gorelick and Raines were cooking the books so they could keep the good bonuses flowing (bonuses are only evil when going to entities such as regular corporations, Wall St brokers and Republicans). When Newt was hired (the second time) in 2006 the above two individuals had been sent packing and the GOP was out for blood, with most Democrats circling the wagons to protect their 'holding pen'.

All the while the housing bubble was steadily growing into a Hindenberg blimp. NPR didn't really mention it, but the GSEs gave donations to the Obama campaign for the same reasons. Obama hired long time Fannie exec Jim Johnson as a consultant, and of course Rahm Emanuel had "worked" for Freddie Mac and was by all descriptions part of Wall Street yet he became advisor to the president and mayor of Chicago.  If you don't believe the above characterization re-read the words of former Alabama Democratic congressman Artur Davis, who sat on the GSE committee:

"Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues, I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership, when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit that when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. By the way, I wish my Republican colleagues would admit that they missed the early warning signs that Wall Street deregulation was overheating the securities market and promoting dangerously lax lending practices. When it comes to the debacle in our capital markets, there is much blame to go around for both sides."

For some reason that revelation wasn't earth shattering back in 2008.  But it highlights the 'help' the GSEs needed when they hired Newt and other GOP lobbyists--get the right wing regulators off their backs to keep the ball rolling under a president who had concerns about their stability despite his overall wish for an ownership society. NPR again:

Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for years had been under scrutiny from Republicans on Capitol Hill who opposed government involvement in the mortgage business and wanted to scale back the companies' size and impose tough regulation.

And yet, Barney Frank just told the MSNBC bobblehead that he saved the day by putting the GSEs into conservatorship in late 2008.  After the bubble popped.   And Frank was in some of the same hearings Davis attended. 

Oh never mind, we know that in this bi-partisan epic fail there can only be one villain.  Newt is probably sugar-coating his role but in the court of media opinion only side can be guilty of such a heinous crime. 

Laying Blame

Here's a bizarre interview with Barney Frank (well not really that bizarre, it's MSNBC) wherein he says the Republicans are trying to 'blame' him and other Dems for the housing collapse.  Blame him?  The chair of the House banking committee during the collapse?  The hellyousay.    

Only a guy like Frank could sit there and talk about the collapse with a straight face but he knows his back is covered---the DNC talking point is to go after Gingrich for taking lobbying cash from the GSEs and the big boys have selective memories.  Frank even comically tried to place himself and Dodd as heroes for putting Fannie/Freddie into conservatorship.  Let's see, the GSEs were placed into conservatorship in SEPTEMBER 2008, just as the crisis began.  Frank took over the banking committee in January 2007.   That gap was not something the drooling Martin Bashir wanted to explore.

Matter of fact Bashir wasn't in the mood to refute any talking point or conjure any history, such as Franks's infamous CNBC interview in summer 2008 (that would be before the conservatorship) where he misled investors by saying the GSEs looked good 'going forward'.  Such spawned the great O'Reilly-Frank shouting match interview.  All now down Bashir's memory hole.

Also, Frank seemed to say the GSEs had 'not lost anything' since they put them into conservatorship, which is completely detached from reality considering they are requesting billions more in bailouts while their leadership gets criticized for passing out bonuses (but not by the president).  Why aren't the OWS folks occupying Barney Frank's street?  Yes, we know.  

Don't take this as an endorsement of Gingrich--his rise will be temporary in my opinion.  I said the same the last time he weighed running in 2008.  He's smart and knows more about government than any of the others but he'll have a tough time wriggling out of the various charges of hypocrisy and moral depravity.  Meanwhile there will be no memory hole for the pointy-headed debate moderator corps, who will no doubt be loaded for bear with all kinds of GSE history at the next debate in order to 'get' Newt for being snippy with their brethren.

But in doing so they will once again prove that the media in this country isn't a journalistic enterprise, just a personal attack machine for favored ideologies as pointed out by the idiotic Bashir interview with Frank.  Their refusal to go after the actual president for taking money from the GSEs in the same aggressive manner should have made that clear long ago.

Here in Asia?

Taken from Obama's APEC presser out in Hiwayer (southern pronunciation of Hawaii), during one of his filbustering replies to Chuck Todd...

One other thing that I want to say about this: When I meet with world leaders, what’s striking -- whether it’s in Europe or here in Asia -- the kinds of fundamental reforms and changes both on the revenue side and the public pension side that other countries are having to make are so much more significant than what we need to do in order to get our books in order.

Emphasis added to note what appears to be a gaffe.   But there are several possibilities: 1) Obama is a blubbering moron who has no idea what he's saying, 2) Obama is confused and thinks he's in Asia already, 3) Obama thinks Hawaii is part of Asia, meaning he's a moron, 4) Obama thinks Hawaii is part of Asia but it's some kind of Maoist/Marxist anti-colonial revisionist history insider wink-wink coded message, 5) Obama was tired.

Of course some birthers may take his reference as a secret admission that he wasn't born in America but chances are the answer is number 5.  And he'll get a pass on it because, 1) he's already the president and 2) he's a politically correct black politician unlike Herman Cain, who is a moron because he forgot his Libya talking points and believes federal employees have collective bargaining rights, even if they do. 

BTW, Gateway dude reports that Obama officially ended the APEC silly outfit photo-op (started by Bill Clinton) this year by unilateral decree.  The attendees were all expecting grass skirts or Hawaiian shirts or some other frivolity, but all for naught.  Guess a flight jacket was enough dress up for one trip.  Hey, they are all politicians.

Accidents Will Happen

It appears the alleged freak accident at the Iranian "ammunition depot' has taken out a big player in the Mullah's long range missile program:

An explosion at a Revolutionary Guard base in Iran killed a senior commander in charge of the country's missile development programme, the authorities have said, prompting speculation Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service was involved.

That's odd, the Iranians never mentioned Israel and America in their post-explosion press reports because it was an accident. Now another 'accident' has occurred, this time in Dubai:

The son of a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander was found dead in a Dubai hotel room -- with his father's website calling the death "suspicious," though police insisted it was not. Numerous Iranian media on Sunday reported the death of Ahmad Rezaie inside Hotel Gloria, a four-star hotel in the coastal United Arab Emirates city.

He was an epileptic and just happened to get electrocuted in his hotel room, presumably.  Wait, isn't that how the HAMAS agent died in Dubai?   They better check the wiring there!  His distraught father is not buying it of course, and in posting about it on his blog made perhaps a little slip:

The same site noted that the death was "concurrent with the martyrdom of Mohsen Rezaie's comrades in arms" on Saturday, referring to an explosion at a military base near Tehran.

Are they considered martyred when dying while routinely transporting warheads from base to base?  Maybe so, but it seems like they might get more virgins if they were killed by an enemy doing the holy work instead of just fate.  Hmm. Well, with all the recent hubbub about Revolutionary Guard involvement in a murder-for-hire plot of a Saudi Ambassador, Stuxnet worms, the IAEA report, and the Russians threatening the west not to mess with Tehran, things seem to be getting ripe for even more accidents.  It might be a good policy for the GOP candidates to play their cards a little closer to the vest on this Iran thing.  Like Herman Cain (even if by default).

Another Debate Brain Freeze

But not by a candidate, this time by renowned 60 Minute moderator Scott Pelley...



And that was probably the least of the criticism directed towards him. Meanwhile the majors took to their fact-checking and analysis with such headlines as...

"Five things we learned from Saturday's GOP debate". Who does CNN think "we" are?  Well, apparently they think we don't like Cain much, because they seemed irritated that Herman had 'read his briefing book'.  They bashed him anyway.  And we didn't learn anything about extra-judicial killings? 

"Romney, Gingrich back war with Iran" (WaPo- front page headline was truncated as shown left).  Maybe we need some factcheckers to attack MSM headlines. 

"GOP field attempts to find foreign policy footing"... yeah, because we all know they are a bunch of stumblers, right ABC?

"Romney, Gingrich back war to keep Iran from nuke". Well, at least the network that hosted the debate put some context into their warmongering headline.  Of course Obama, the warmongering Nobel Peace president, hasn't taken a military option off his Persian plate either.

"Iran dominates GOP contenders debate". WOW! Fair and balanced...and from MSNBC! Hope springs eternal.

Obama on the Carrier

Let's stipulate up front--compared to the POTUS making a carrier landing, striding out on the deck in his flight suit holding his helmet, then giving what most have come to call the 'mission accomplished' speech it wasn't quite as dramatic. And this time it was Veterans Day.

But it was a photo-op on a carrier, nonetheless. In the bask of a glow around the first ever college hoops contest on a flattop there was the CinC, flight jacket adorned, striding out at mid-court to speak about public enemy number one finding his watery grave from that very flight deck last year and jobs, jobs, jobs.  He followed it with a self-congratulatory Saturday internet address from the bridge, again in the flight jacket, where he also mentioned his "ending the wars" and his jobs bill as a way to get soldiers back to work when they return.

Yet there really wasn't much wrong with the whole thing in context, other than a lack of outrage. 

Yep, back when Bush photo-op'ed our military's take-down of the Saddam regime from a flat top--and before the 'mission accomplished' banner in the background took over the memory--here was some typical lefty reaction:

Against this background, liberals are now saying there should be a wall of separation between commanders-in-chief and their prior military experience. Recently the Senate’s senior Democrat, Robert Byrd, blasted Bush for flying out to the Lincoln in a fighter jet. He denounced the action as “self-congratulatory” and “flamboyant showmanship.” (Byrd is just jealous that Bush’s showmanship comes off better than Byrd’s in Gods and Generals.)

Over in the House, Rep. Henry Waxman, in flamboyant contradiction to his entire career, is suddenly concerned about government spending: How much did Bush’s flight cost the Treasury? More ominously, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warns that “Mr. Bush was breaking an important tradition” when he donned a flight suit; that his “Top Gun act” was “scary”; that American presidents just don’t wear uniforms or military accoutrements. (Never mind that the president had to wear a flight suit to go up in an S-3B Viking jet, and that after mixing and mingling with the sailors, he got out of his flight suit and put on civilian clothes for his public address.)

Of course the photo-op got worse with time as the Iraqi insurgency took root, but there's scant evidence of any such outrage this time.  Not even from the right, who have largely let the president celebrate in peace with the troops and his favorite passtime.  Matter of fact, one of the most critical rags over Bush's photo-op is now telling us there is common ground about the Iraq victory withdrawal thing..

Pi

If that picture looks familiar it should--a similar one adorned all publications after the World War II victory parade.  And the troops?  Beaming. 

To be fair, the game idea was hatched some time ago so Obama didn't orchestrate things, he just showed up and got a photo-op.  But it was a photo-op, just like Bush on the Lincoln.  Like Bush he left some hint of a military success, this time vis a vis al Qaeda, a sort of 'mission accomplished' without the banner.  We can only hope the very dangerous enemies still out there don't spoil yet another speech.

Side Tracks

For those interested in a longer live version, this one's pretty good.