When Sen. Barack Obama was given the floor to speak during White House negotiations, according to White House aides, he did so raising concerns about a House Republican alternative to the Paulson/Bernanke $700 billion bailout. But those concerns weren't necessarily his, as he was not aware of the GOP plan before reviewing notes provided him by Paulson loyalists in Treasury prior to entering the meeting.
According to an Obama campaign source, the notes were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him, who had been emailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. "It was made clear that the memo was from ‘friends' and was reliable," says the campaign source.
The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails.
"Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the administration for which they serve," says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting, but who instead is part of the team hammering out the House GOP alternative. "We keep hearing about how Secretary Paulson is working with Democrats on this or that, yet he never seems to consider working with the party that essentially hired him. Perhaps he's auditioning for a Democratic administration job. Our proposal didn't just spring forth fully formed; we've been working on this for several days, and Treasury staff has known about it."
Posted By: The Washington Prowler
Friday, September 26, 2008
Disturbing Trend for Wildlife in the USA
The photo below captures a disturbing trend that is now
beginning to affect wildlife in nearly every region of the
United States.
click on photo to enlarge
Animals that were formerly self-sufficient are now showing definite signs of belonging to the Democratic Party. That is becoming more and more evident as they have apparently learned to just sit on their asses and wait for the government
to step in and provide for their care and sustenance.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
McCain says he has no computer skills. Obumma folk keep repeating that tidbit of honesty.
Select Secret Meeters;
Obumma says McCain should go to the debates... that a president will have to do more than one thing at a time..... like print the name and address of a lazy illiterate ghetto dead beat while chewing gum and talking at the same time or....... maybe like... watch your airspeed, altitude, gear down, engine temp, signal lights, hook down, snag cable, etc. etc. Well I guess both candidates qualify for doing more than one thing at a time.
McCain says he has no computer skills. Obumma folk keep repeating that tidbit of honesty.
IF you can even start a jet plane engine, fly a jet plane off an aircraft carrier, navigate over the Pacific Ocean, find a target in a strange country, bomb the target, find your aircraft carrier somewhere in the Pacific and LAND your jet airplane on a moving flight deck......... Or maybe if you can communicate by eye blinks and ear wiggles with fellow prisoners while a bunch of gooks turn your arms into pretzels ....THEN YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO USE ANY &&*%%$# KIND OF COMPUTER ANY #**&^%$ TIME YOU WANT TOO.
There... I feel better now. Thanks. See you soon
Hoss
Obumma says McCain should go to the debates... that a president will have to do more than one thing at a time..... like print the name and address of a lazy illiterate ghetto dead beat while chewing gum and talking at the same time or....... maybe like... watch your airspeed, altitude, gear down, engine temp, signal lights, hook down, snag cable, etc. etc. Well I guess both candidates qualify for doing more than one thing at a time.
McCain says he has no computer skills. Obumma folk keep repeating that tidbit of honesty.
IF you can even start a jet plane engine, fly a jet plane off an aircraft carrier, navigate over the Pacific Ocean, find a target in a strange country, bomb the target, find your aircraft carrier somewhere in the Pacific and LAND your jet airplane on a moving flight deck......... Or maybe if you can communicate by eye blinks and ear wiggles with fellow prisoners while a bunch of gooks turn your arms into pretzels ....THEN YOU CAN LEARN HOW TO USE ANY &&*%%$# KIND OF COMPUTER ANY #**&^%$ TIME YOU WANT TOO.
There... I feel better now. Thanks. See you soon
Hoss
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
You Want Change?? bend over
It's Congress, of course.
They never take the blame for anything they do.
George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years.
The first six, the economy was fine.
A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%.
4) the DOW JONES hit a record high--14,000 +
5) American's were buying new cars, taking cruises, vacations o'seas, living large!...
But American's wanted 'CHANGE'!
So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep--
we got 'CHANGE' all right!....
1) Consumer confidence has plummeted
2) Gasoline is now over $4 a gallon & climbing!
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS & prices still dropping;
5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6) as I write, THE DOW is probing another low~~11,300--$2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS!
YEP , IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE!...AND WE SURE AS HELL GOT IT!!!....
NOW Barrack Obama, the DEM'S CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT--AND HE COULD BE 'THE MAN'--
CLAIMS HE'S GONNA REALLY GIVE US CHANGE!!....
JUST HOW MUCH MORE 'CHANGE' DO YA THINK YOU CAN STAND???...
They never take the blame for anything they do.
George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years.
The first six, the economy was fine.
A little over one year ago:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%.
4) the DOW JONES hit a record high--14,000 +
5) American's were buying new cars, taking cruises, vacations o'seas, living large!...
But American's wanted 'CHANGE'!
So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress & yep--
we got 'CHANGE' all right!....
1) Consumer confidence has plummeted
2) Gasoline is now over $4 a gallon & climbing!
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS & prices still dropping;
5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6) as I write, THE DOW is probing another low~~11,300--$2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS!
YEP , IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE!...AND WE SURE AS HELL GOT IT!!!....
NOW Barrack Obama, the DEM'S CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT--AND HE COULD BE 'THE MAN'--
CLAIMS HE'S GONNA REALLY GIVE US CHANGE!!....
JUST HOW MUCH MORE 'CHANGE' DO YA THINK YOU CAN STAND???...
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Blame Fannie Mae and Congress
Wall Street Journal
Many monumental errors and misjudgments contributed to the acute financial turmoil in which we now find ourselves. Nevertheless, the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt that poisoned the global financial system was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The poor choices of these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) -- and their sponsors in Washington -- are largely to blame for our current mess.
How did we get here? Let's review: In order to curry congressional support after their accounting scandals in 2003 and 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of "affordable housing." They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and substantially magnified the costs of its collapse.
It is important to understand that, as GSEs, Fannie and Freddie were viewed in the capital markets as government-backed buyers (a belief that has now been reduced to fact). Thus they were able to borrow as much as they wanted for the purpose of buying mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Their buying patterns and interests were followed closely in the markets. If Fannie and Freddie wanted subprime or Alt-A loans, the mortgage markets would produce them. By late 2004, Fannie and Freddie very much wanted subprime and Alt-A loans. Their accounting had just been revealed as fraudulent, and they were under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that they deserved their considerable privileges. Among other problems, economists at the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office had begun to study them in detail, and found that -- despite their subsidized borrowing rates -- they did not significantly reduce mortgage interest rates. In the wake of Freddie's 2003 accounting scandal, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, and began to call for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their highly profitable, but risky, retained portfolios.
If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and the economy, what value were they providing? The answer was their affordable-housing mission. So it was that, beginning in 2004, their portfolios of subprime and Alt-A loans and securities began to grow. Subprime and Alt-A originations in the U.S. rose from less than 8% of all mortgages in 2003 to over 20% in 2006. During this period the quality of subprime loans also declined, going from fixed rate, long-term amortizing loans to loans with low down payments and low (but adjustable) initial rates, indicating that originators were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find product for buyers like the GSEs.
The strategy of presenting themselves to Congress as the champions of affordable housing appears to have worked. Fannie and Freddie retained the support of many in Congress, particularly Democrats, and they were allowed to continue unrestrained. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass), for example, now the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, openly described the "arrangement" with the GSEs at a committee hearing on GSE reform in 2003: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping to make housing more affordable . . . a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing." The hint to Fannie and Freddie was obvious: Concentrate on affordable housing and, despite your problems, your congressional support is secure.
In light of the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, both John McCain and Barack Obama now criticize the risk-tolerant regulatory regime that produced the current crisis. But Sen. McCain's criticisms are at least credible, since he has been pointing to systemic risks in the mortgage market and trying to do something about them for years. In contrast, Sen. Obama's conversion as a financial reformer marks a reversal from his actions in previous years, when he did nothing to disturb the status quo. The first head of Mr. Obama's vice-presidential search committee, Jim Johnson, a former chairman of Fannie Mae, was the one who announced Fannie's original affordable-housing program in 1991 -- just as Congress was taking up the first GSE regulatory legislation.
In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then under Republican control, adopted a strong reform bill, introduced by Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Chuck Hagel, and supported by then chairman Richard Shelby. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006. All the Republicans on the Committee supported the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it. Mr. McCain endorsed the legislation in a speech on the Senate floor. Mr. Obama, like all other Democrats, remained silent.
Now the Democrats are blaming the financial crisis on "deregulation." This is a canard. There has indeed been deregulation in our economy -- in long-distance telephone rates, airline fares, securities brokerage and trucking, to name just a few -- and this has produced much innovation and lower consumer prices. But the primary "deregulation" in the financial world in the last 30 years permitted banks to diversify their risks geographically and across different products, which is one of the things that has kept banks relatively stable in this storm.
As a result, U.S. commercial banks have been able to attract more than $100 billion of new capital in the past year to replace most of their subprime-related write-downs. Deregulation of branching restrictions and limitations on bank product offerings also made possible bank acquisition of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, saving billions in likely resolution costs for taxpayers.
If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005-2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it.
Mr. Calomiris is a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was general counsel of the Treasury Department in the Reagan administration.
Many monumental errors and misjudgments contributed to the acute financial turmoil in which we now find ourselves. Nevertheless, the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt that poisoned the global financial system was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The poor choices of these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) -- and their sponsors in Washington -- are largely to blame for our current mess.
How did we get here? Let's review: In order to curry congressional support after their accounting scandals in 2003 and 2004, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac committed to increased financing of "affordable housing." They became the largest buyers of subprime and Alt-A mortgages between 2004 and 2007, with total GSE exposure eventually exceeding $1 trillion. In doing so, they stimulated the growth of the subpar mortgage market and substantially magnified the costs of its collapse.
It is important to understand that, as GSEs, Fannie and Freddie were viewed in the capital markets as government-backed buyers (a belief that has now been reduced to fact). Thus they were able to borrow as much as they wanted for the purpose of buying mortgages and mortgage-backed securities. Their buying patterns and interests were followed closely in the markets. If Fannie and Freddie wanted subprime or Alt-A loans, the mortgage markets would produce them. By late 2004, Fannie and Freddie very much wanted subprime and Alt-A loans. Their accounting had just been revealed as fraudulent, and they were under pressure from Congress to demonstrate that they deserved their considerable privileges. Among other problems, economists at the Federal Reserve and Congressional Budget Office had begun to study them in detail, and found that -- despite their subsidized borrowing rates -- they did not significantly reduce mortgage interest rates. In the wake of Freddie's 2003 accounting scandal, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan became a powerful opponent, and began to call for stricter regulation of the GSEs and limitations on the growth of their highly profitable, but risky, retained portfolios.
If they were not making mortgages cheaper and were creating risks for the taxpayers and the economy, what value were they providing? The answer was their affordable-housing mission. So it was that, beginning in 2004, their portfolios of subprime and Alt-A loans and securities began to grow. Subprime and Alt-A originations in the U.S. rose from less than 8% of all mortgages in 2003 to over 20% in 2006. During this period the quality of subprime loans also declined, going from fixed rate, long-term amortizing loans to loans with low down payments and low (but adjustable) initial rates, indicating that originators were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find product for buyers like the GSEs.
The strategy of presenting themselves to Congress as the champions of affordable housing appears to have worked. Fannie and Freddie retained the support of many in Congress, particularly Democrats, and they were allowed to continue unrestrained. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass), for example, now the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, openly described the "arrangement" with the GSEs at a committee hearing on GSE reform in 2003: "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have played a very useful role in helping to make housing more affordable . . . a mission that this Congress has given them in return for some of the arrangements which are of some benefit to them to focus on affordable housing." The hint to Fannie and Freddie was obvious: Concentrate on affordable housing and, despite your problems, your congressional support is secure.
In light of the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, both John McCain and Barack Obama now criticize the risk-tolerant regulatory regime that produced the current crisis. But Sen. McCain's criticisms are at least credible, since he has been pointing to systemic risks in the mortgage market and trying to do something about them for years. In contrast, Sen. Obama's conversion as a financial reformer marks a reversal from his actions in previous years, when he did nothing to disturb the status quo. The first head of Mr. Obama's vice-presidential search committee, Jim Johnson, a former chairman of Fannie Mae, was the one who announced Fannie's original affordable-housing program in 1991 -- just as Congress was taking up the first GSE regulatory legislation.
In 2005, the Senate Banking Committee, then under Republican control, adopted a strong reform bill, introduced by Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole, John Sununu and Chuck Hagel, and supported by then chairman Richard Shelby. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006. All the Republicans on the Committee supported the bill, and all the Democrats voted against it. Mr. McCain endorsed the legislation in a speech on the Senate floor. Mr. Obama, like all other Democrats, remained silent.
Now the Democrats are blaming the financial crisis on "deregulation." This is a canard. There has indeed been deregulation in our economy -- in long-distance telephone rates, airline fares, securities brokerage and trucking, to name just a few -- and this has produced much innovation and lower consumer prices. But the primary "deregulation" in the financial world in the last 30 years permitted banks to diversify their risks geographically and across different products, which is one of the things that has kept banks relatively stable in this storm.
As a result, U.S. commercial banks have been able to attract more than $100 billion of new capital in the past year to replace most of their subprime-related write-downs. Deregulation of branching restrictions and limitations on bank product offerings also made possible bank acquisition of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, saving billions in likely resolution costs for taxpayers.
If the Democrats had let the 2005 legislation come to a vote, the huge growth in the subprime and Alt-A loan portfolios of Fannie and Freddie could not have occurred, and the scale of the financial meltdown would have been substantially less. The same politicians who today decry the lack of intervention to stop excess risk taking in 2005-2006 were the ones who blocked the only legislative effort that could have stopped it.
Mr. Calomiris is a professor of finance and economics at Columbia Business School and a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Wallison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was general counsel of the Treasury Department in the Reagan administration.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Blacks Against Obama Interrupt Campaign Rally
*Note: Links to content outside usually become inactive over time.
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/178233.html
On with other things....
RUSH: Robert B. Reich on the MSNBC last night slips up here and tells the truth that Democrats and Greenspan were responsible for the experiment that gave houses to people who cannot afford them. Question: "Were conservative Democrats part of the problem here?"
REICH: In the latter years of the Clinton administration -- when I was not there any longer, I should add -- there was an attempt by Alan Greenspan and Bob Rubin and a few others to deregulate financial markets, and they did. They split commercial banking off from investment banking. And many people say, "Well, that was the beginning of the problem," and then, of course, in 2003-2004, Alan Greenspan reduced short-term interest rates to the point where every single bank wanted to lend money. I mean, if you could stand up straight you could get a bank loan because there was so much pressure to get that money out the door. Money was so cheap. So, yes, there is some responsibility on Democrats, some responsibility on Alan Greenspan and the Fed.
RUSH: Now, notice, notice here that the Labor Secretary wants to distance himself from any of this, and the little code word conservative Democrats. Yeah, Bob Rubin, conservative Democrat, Alan Greenspan, conservative Democrat, right. He slipped up. The point is all of this started back in the Clinton administration. You can find it, and it's not just Robert B. Reich saying it, there are others, too. I'm looking at the Obama campaign in all of this, folks. I'm watching. Obama is, right now, saying that McCain doesn't believe in regulating the financial market. McCain just got through saying he wants to investigate them, for crying out loud. But where is Obama? He's now saying we must build a 21st century regulatory framework. That's what got us into the problem is more and more government, and he's going to illustrate the fact that he wants to get more and more. He doesn't understand what he's talking about. Do you realize he hasn't the slightest clue?
Obama is taking his teleprompter to rodeo appearances! He's not going to go anywhere without that teleprompter. Now, how many of you have been to a rodeo and seen somebody speaking out there with a teleprompter? And they're doing this 'cause they don't trust him. They have to keep him on message. When he's without that prompter, he wanders all over, he's simplistic. I think this entire Democrat campaign is just simplistic. On the subject of energy, what is their solution? Blame Big Oil. On health care, blame the insurance companies. On the Wall Street problem, blame Republicans. Not enough regulation. In the meantime, Obama doesn't have an even rudimentary understanding of how this stuff works. He didn't understand the capital gains tax when Charlie Gibson asked him about it. He has no fundamental understanding of some of the most important institutions that have led to this nation's greatness. All he has is an anger about them, a disrespect for them, a distrust of them because of how he has been educated. And to listen to Obama say he will change bankruptcy laws so families stay in homes, what, so people who do not have to pay the loans back still get to stay in the house? Is that what you mean? "I'll make our laws work for working people." You already did that. You already came up with a bunch of laws that allowed working people who couldn't afford to buy houses to buy them, and now look where they are?
I'm telling you, folks, when these Democrats start telling you they're going to work for you, run for the hills, because what they mean is they are going to work for themselves. Now, about Carly Fiorina, just a couple words here. She said on MSNBC last night, "I think you're confusing John McCain's position by painting it as hands-off, free market, laissez-faire. I think that has been perhaps true of the Bush administration in the last few years in terms of the Wild, Wild West in terms of no regulation, but it's definitely not what McCain believes in." Now, I like Carly Fiorina. I have never met her, but she presents herself well and the McCain campaign well, but this is a disgrace. This is a disgrace that she either doesn't know or doesn't have the presence of mind to tell the truth in this appearance last night. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been Democrat controlled and run entities since their founding. Democrats have made tens of millions of dollars running them, and they have greased the palms of leading Democrats, including Obama.
The opposition to reforming them has come from congressional Democrats and former Clinton administration officials. It has been Republicans who did everything they could to try to get some regulation into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and they were beaten back by the Democrats at every turn when they attempted to try it. Those are the facts. This gratuitous attack on Bush is unnecessary. Bush is not the enemy right now. They're running against Obama. They are running against Democrats. It's not good to promote McCain by embracing the lies about a current sitting Republican president. It's disloyal, it's dishonest. She owes Bush an apology. She has totally mischaracterized him as a wild west, no regulation cowboy. He was involved in trying to reregulate these things. Bush has been big government regulator in many ways. I understand what they have to do. I understand they have to do. They have to distance McCain from Bush 'cause Obama and Biden are now back on this tack that it's just four more years of Bush. But this is what bothers me about this. I can't turn on a dime and buy into this dumping on Bush as a way to promote McCain 'cause Bush isn't on the ballot, Bush is not running again, Bush is not the enemy. He is not disliked in a personal way by people that are going to vote for McCain.
To say Bush is not supportive of regulation is just not true. He supported lots and lots of it. This isn't about free markets, as I said yesterday. We're living in a dream world where people think that this is a laissez-faire free market. To not use the opportunity as one of McCain's -- she's a senior economic advisor. You know, she ran Hewlett-Packard. She's got a tremendous resume of business achievement and success. Lucent. The woman is a dynamo. But to not have enough information at hand to explain how the Democrats were essentially in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both as executives and in Congress? Two of the former CEOs of Fannie Mae are working on the Obama campaign as economic advisors. Franklin Raines and a guy named Jim Johnson. To not know the history of efforts by Republicans to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and then take Gregory's scenario that this was a Bush and free market failure. Good Lord, folks. We spent the whole day yesterday explaining how the free market had nothing to do with this. This is a result of government getting involved, and now the very people who screwed this up now run it totally. There's not even the impression of some private sector ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. This is disappointing. The enemy is Obama and his literal lack of understanding and in experience in all these matters. And for that matter, Biden's, too.
If you find it necessary to distance yourself from Bush, do it on something other than where the Democrats are a prime target. They are sitting ducks on this. You can tell the people the truth. You can educate them and inform them from the bully pulpit of the campaign. It's not too complicated. It's just a shame out there. In fact, San Francisco Chronicle -- which is where Carly Fiorina lives -- a story by Carolyn Lochhead: "Obama Needs a Sister Souljah Moment." The thrust of this piece is that Obama should rip the Democrats who protected Fannie and Freddie and allowed this mess to happen. You have to assume here that we're not talking about a rock-ribbed conservative journalist here. "Obama has a golden opportunity with the U.S. financial system falling apart at the seams," which it's not falling apart at the seams. Anybody ever heard of E. F. Hutton? Where are they today? They don't exist, Snerdley, they went belly up. Remember the commercials? When E. F. Hutton speaks -- yeah, well, where are they? These things happen all the time. These investment banking firms go south all the time. This is not the first time this has happened. Everybody's historical perspective begins with the day the day they were born. No, we're not teetering on the edge of a depression.
We still haven't had one quarter of down economic growth. The Consumer Price Index is plummeting, meaning inflation is plummeting. Oil is at 92 bucks a barrel. The one thing that had people all upset, gas prices, pretty soon they're going to be down to the three-dollar range again. At any rate, we're not falling apart at the seams. Let me get back to her piece here. "Congressional Democrats were and remain the leading defenders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, promising to resist efforts to shrink the companies, now under government control, and sell off their assets. Democrats had plenty of help from Republicans, to be sure, but it was mainly conservatives who have been warning for more than a decade that their public risk/private profit model was a disaster waiting to happen." Yes, how in the world can you have a so-called private sector entity -- Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae -- that's owned in part by the government and then say it's private sector? You can't.
"If Obama were to use the financial crisis to rise again above partisan orthodoxy, he might shake people out of their party ruts that they are fast falling into. He would have to do so in a way that people understand -- borrowing from the master, Bill Clinton. Obama's unwillingness to take on his own party is his weakness and McCain's strength." Now, San Francisco Chronicle there, Carolyn Lochhead. But she inadvertently, as does Robert B. Reich, lays the blame squarely at the feet of Democrats. Why in the world can people in San Francisco understand this and Robert Reich and McCain's leading economic advisor want to blame Bush for this? Damn.
RUSH: The real culprits in this meltdown: "Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it." Let me give you some of the details here from the Investor's Business Daily editorial. It was the Clinton administration -- and we have Robert B. Reich backing this up on television last night -- "obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions. Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making." Robert B. Reich just confirmed this last night on TV. "It was either that or face stiff government penalties," if you didn't loan to these people.
"The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but 'predatory.'" See, the very people that designed the program that led to all of this mess now get to blame the private sector and they're put back in total control and charge of it. "Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck. And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi- governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America. As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud."
Can I translate that for you? Franklin Raines was a Treasury employee, some sort of cabinet secretary in the Clinton administration. He ends up at Fannie Mae and pays himself a hundred million bucks from 1999 to 2005, and they finally had to get rid of him because the scandal could not be contained. Democrats propped up this, Carly! Bush didn't do any of this. "Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million." Gorelick again. "In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk. But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America." Hello, Mr. Chris Dodd, number one receiver of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. "At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households. The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists."
By the way, do you know what affordable housing is? Housing nobody can pay for. Housing that people who live in it can't pay. Affordable housing, that's right, is welfare state housing. Next time you hear the term "affordable housing" think welfare state housing paid for by you, me, and all the rest. "The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. ... But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well- meaning, if misguided, acts." So here we are, we're back to the old excuse, "Well, our heart's were in the right place." Forget examining the results, just like the Great Society went south, the war on poverty, all this garbage never works, doesn't matter, we're not supposed to examine the results. We're supposed to examine their good intentions, the size of their hearts. All well and good. Democrats are sitting ducks on this. Democrats are sitting ducks on the energy issue. Democrats are sitting ducks in the culture war. Democrats, Obama, Biden, are sitting ducks on every back-pocket issue that matters to American families, and we've got McCain people bashing George Bush. Now, I understand the need for distance here, Bush on popularity. But find something else to do it, like hunting. Folks, it pains me. Obama and the Democrats are sitting ducks on the issue that has Americans feeling unsettled, and that is the economy. Their money. Their houses. Democrats did this! George Bush did not!
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/178233.html
On with other things....
RUSH: Robert B. Reich on the MSNBC last night slips up here and tells the truth that Democrats and Greenspan were responsible for the experiment that gave houses to people who cannot afford them. Question: "Were conservative Democrats part of the problem here?"
REICH: In the latter years of the Clinton administration -- when I was not there any longer, I should add -- there was an attempt by Alan Greenspan and Bob Rubin and a few others to deregulate financial markets, and they did. They split commercial banking off from investment banking. And many people say, "Well, that was the beginning of the problem," and then, of course, in 2003-2004, Alan Greenspan reduced short-term interest rates to the point where every single bank wanted to lend money. I mean, if you could stand up straight you could get a bank loan because there was so much pressure to get that money out the door. Money was so cheap. So, yes, there is some responsibility on Democrats, some responsibility on Alan Greenspan and the Fed.
RUSH: Now, notice, notice here that the Labor Secretary wants to distance himself from any of this, and the little code word conservative Democrats. Yeah, Bob Rubin, conservative Democrat, Alan Greenspan, conservative Democrat, right. He slipped up. The point is all of this started back in the Clinton administration. You can find it, and it's not just Robert B. Reich saying it, there are others, too. I'm looking at the Obama campaign in all of this, folks. I'm watching. Obama is, right now, saying that McCain doesn't believe in regulating the financial market. McCain just got through saying he wants to investigate them, for crying out loud. But where is Obama? He's now saying we must build a 21st century regulatory framework. That's what got us into the problem is more and more government, and he's going to illustrate the fact that he wants to get more and more. He doesn't understand what he's talking about. Do you realize he hasn't the slightest clue?
Obama is taking his teleprompter to rodeo appearances! He's not going to go anywhere without that teleprompter. Now, how many of you have been to a rodeo and seen somebody speaking out there with a teleprompter? And they're doing this 'cause they don't trust him. They have to keep him on message. When he's without that prompter, he wanders all over, he's simplistic. I think this entire Democrat campaign is just simplistic. On the subject of energy, what is their solution? Blame Big Oil. On health care, blame the insurance companies. On the Wall Street problem, blame Republicans. Not enough regulation. In the meantime, Obama doesn't have an even rudimentary understanding of how this stuff works. He didn't understand the capital gains tax when Charlie Gibson asked him about it. He has no fundamental understanding of some of the most important institutions that have led to this nation's greatness. All he has is an anger about them, a disrespect for them, a distrust of them because of how he has been educated. And to listen to Obama say he will change bankruptcy laws so families stay in homes, what, so people who do not have to pay the loans back still get to stay in the house? Is that what you mean? "I'll make our laws work for working people." You already did that. You already came up with a bunch of laws that allowed working people who couldn't afford to buy houses to buy them, and now look where they are?
I'm telling you, folks, when these Democrats start telling you they're going to work for you, run for the hills, because what they mean is they are going to work for themselves. Now, about Carly Fiorina, just a couple words here. She said on MSNBC last night, "I think you're confusing John McCain's position by painting it as hands-off, free market, laissez-faire. I think that has been perhaps true of the Bush administration in the last few years in terms of the Wild, Wild West in terms of no regulation, but it's definitely not what McCain believes in." Now, I like Carly Fiorina. I have never met her, but she presents herself well and the McCain campaign well, but this is a disgrace. This is a disgrace that she either doesn't know or doesn't have the presence of mind to tell the truth in this appearance last night. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been Democrat controlled and run entities since their founding. Democrats have made tens of millions of dollars running them, and they have greased the palms of leading Democrats, including Obama.
The opposition to reforming them has come from congressional Democrats and former Clinton administration officials. It has been Republicans who did everything they could to try to get some regulation into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and they were beaten back by the Democrats at every turn when they attempted to try it. Those are the facts. This gratuitous attack on Bush is unnecessary. Bush is not the enemy right now. They're running against Obama. They are running against Democrats. It's not good to promote McCain by embracing the lies about a current sitting Republican president. It's disloyal, it's dishonest. She owes Bush an apology. She has totally mischaracterized him as a wild west, no regulation cowboy. He was involved in trying to reregulate these things. Bush has been big government regulator in many ways. I understand what they have to do. I understand they have to do. They have to distance McCain from Bush 'cause Obama and Biden are now back on this tack that it's just four more years of Bush. But this is what bothers me about this. I can't turn on a dime and buy into this dumping on Bush as a way to promote McCain 'cause Bush isn't on the ballot, Bush is not running again, Bush is not the enemy. He is not disliked in a personal way by people that are going to vote for McCain.
To say Bush is not supportive of regulation is just not true. He supported lots and lots of it. This isn't about free markets, as I said yesterday. We're living in a dream world where people think that this is a laissez-faire free market. To not use the opportunity as one of McCain's -- she's a senior economic advisor. You know, she ran Hewlett-Packard. She's got a tremendous resume of business achievement and success. Lucent. The woman is a dynamo. But to not have enough information at hand to explain how the Democrats were essentially in charge of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both as executives and in Congress? Two of the former CEOs of Fannie Mae are working on the Obama campaign as economic advisors. Franklin Raines and a guy named Jim Johnson. To not know the history of efforts by Republicans to reform Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and then take Gregory's scenario that this was a Bush and free market failure. Good Lord, folks. We spent the whole day yesterday explaining how the free market had nothing to do with this. This is a result of government getting involved, and now the very people who screwed this up now run it totally. There's not even the impression of some private sector ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. This is disappointing. The enemy is Obama and his literal lack of understanding and in experience in all these matters. And for that matter, Biden's, too.
If you find it necessary to distance yourself from Bush, do it on something other than where the Democrats are a prime target. They are sitting ducks on this. You can tell the people the truth. You can educate them and inform them from the bully pulpit of the campaign. It's not too complicated. It's just a shame out there. In fact, San Francisco Chronicle -- which is where Carly Fiorina lives -- a story by Carolyn Lochhead: "Obama Needs a Sister Souljah Moment." The thrust of this piece is that Obama should rip the Democrats who protected Fannie and Freddie and allowed this mess to happen. You have to assume here that we're not talking about a rock-ribbed conservative journalist here. "Obama has a golden opportunity with the U.S. financial system falling apart at the seams," which it's not falling apart at the seams. Anybody ever heard of E. F. Hutton? Where are they today? They don't exist, Snerdley, they went belly up. Remember the commercials? When E. F. Hutton speaks -- yeah, well, where are they? These things happen all the time. These investment banking firms go south all the time. This is not the first time this has happened. Everybody's historical perspective begins with the day the day they were born. No, we're not teetering on the edge of a depression.
We still haven't had one quarter of down economic growth. The Consumer Price Index is plummeting, meaning inflation is plummeting. Oil is at 92 bucks a barrel. The one thing that had people all upset, gas prices, pretty soon they're going to be down to the three-dollar range again. At any rate, we're not falling apart at the seams. Let me get back to her piece here. "Congressional Democrats were and remain the leading defenders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, promising to resist efforts to shrink the companies, now under government control, and sell off their assets. Democrats had plenty of help from Republicans, to be sure, but it was mainly conservatives who have been warning for more than a decade that their public risk/private profit model was a disaster waiting to happen." Yes, how in the world can you have a so-called private sector entity -- Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae -- that's owned in part by the government and then say it's private sector? You can't.
"If Obama were to use the financial crisis to rise again above partisan orthodoxy, he might shake people out of their party ruts that they are fast falling into. He would have to do so in a way that people understand -- borrowing from the master, Bill Clinton. Obama's unwillingness to take on his own party is his weakness and McCain's strength." Now, San Francisco Chronicle there, Carolyn Lochhead. But she inadvertently, as does Robert B. Reich, lays the blame squarely at the feet of Democrats. Why in the world can people in San Francisco understand this and Robert Reich and McCain's leading economic advisor want to blame Bush for this? Damn.
RUSH: The real culprits in this meltdown: "Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it's dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it." Let me give you some of the details here from the Investor's Business Daily editorial. It was the Clinton administration -- and we have Robert B. Reich backing this up on television last night -- "obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for the high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of many of Wall Street's most revered institutions. Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk areas where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making." Robert B. Reich just confirmed this last night on TV. "It was either that or face stiff government penalties," if you didn't loan to these people.
"The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Redevelopment Act, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but 'predatory.'" See, the very people that designed the program that led to all of this mess now get to blame the private sector and they're put back in total control and charge of it. "Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the '90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck. And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi- governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America. As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud."
Can I translate that for you? Franklin Raines was a Treasury employee, some sort of cabinet secretary in the Clinton administration. He ends up at Fannie Mae and pays himself a hundred million bucks from 1999 to 2005, and they finally had to get rid of him because the scandal could not be contained. Democrats propped up this, Carly! Bush didn't do any of this. "Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million." Gorelick again. "In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk. But it was too little, too late. Raines had reportedly steered Fannie Mae business to subprime giant Countrywide Financial, which was saved from bankruptcy by Bank of America." Hello, Mr. Chris Dodd, number one receiver of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae. "At the same time, the Clinton administration was pushing Fannie and her brother Freddie Mac to buy more mortgages from low-income households. The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists."
By the way, do you know what affordable housing is? Housing nobody can pay for. Housing that people who live in it can't pay. Affordable housing, that's right, is welfare state housing. Next time you hear the term "affordable housing" think welfare state housing paid for by you, me, and all the rest. "The Clinton-era corruption, combined with unprecedented catering to affordable-housing lobbyists, resulted in today's nationalization of both Fannie and Freddie, a move that is expected to cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. ... But the government-can-do-no-wrong crowd just doesn't get it. They won't acknowledge the law of unintended consequences from well- meaning, if misguided, acts." So here we are, we're back to the old excuse, "Well, our heart's were in the right place." Forget examining the results, just like the Great Society went south, the war on poverty, all this garbage never works, doesn't matter, we're not supposed to examine the results. We're supposed to examine their good intentions, the size of their hearts. All well and good. Democrats are sitting ducks on this. Democrats are sitting ducks on the energy issue. Democrats are sitting ducks in the culture war. Democrats, Obama, Biden, are sitting ducks on every back-pocket issue that matters to American families, and we've got McCain people bashing George Bush. Now, I understand the need for distance here, Bush on popularity. But find something else to do it, like hunting. Folks, it pains me. Obama and the Democrats are sitting ducks on the issue that has Americans feeling unsettled, and that is the economy. Their money. Their houses. Democrats did this! George Bush did not!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Bush Policies Will Not Change
To know what is right and do what is wrong is the worst cowardice.
This republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Ronald Kessler
Now that voters have voted for change, President Bush will surely recognize the error of his ways and change direction, or so the media spin goes.
Wrong.
If you were president on 9/11 and wished you had done more to prevent the deaths of almost 3,000 people, would you change direction if you believed your policies were helping prevent the next terrorist attack?
That is at the heart of Bush's approach — and at the heart of the public's misunderstanding about the man.
Straightforward Leadership
To be sure, Bush will do what he can to accommodate the other side. Behind the scenes, he has had breakfast with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and has invited her to White House functions. But in many ways, Bush is an anti-politician. He loves being with people; he loves campaigning; and he loves to win. But like Harry Truman, he has an aversion to the acting and pretense of politics.
"He dislikes snobs, hypocrites, the glitterati, and the so-called intelligentsia," Collister "Terry" Johnson Jr., one of Bush's roommates at Yale, told me. "He dislikes all that stuff because he thinks it's phony."
In the opinion of Clay Johnson III, another Yale roommate who is deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bush's distaste for pretense is why he makes his trademark smirks or half smiles, a gesture that many interpret as arrogance. When responding to loaded questions from reporters, Bush signals, ever so subtly, what he really thinks.
The smirk is not a sign of arrogance but rather an effort to convey his feeling that he is participating in a charade.
'What You See Is What You Get'
"He's a bad actor, a bad pretender," Johnson said. "He doesn't get up and say, ‘One and one is two,' unless he really knows it's two. What you see is what you get. So when you see him working that lip or showing discomfort, he can't act that away. It means he's bored or perturbed. A real actor would not show that."
As Bush's approval ratings started to plunge over the Iraq war, the media depicted the White House as distraught and distracted. But they never got what Bush is all about. He did not seek office to win popularity.
He ran to achieve long-term fundamental change that would leave the country and the world a better, safer place.
Like Warren Buffett, Bush keeps his eyes on the horizon. Buffett invests in companies he believes have long-term growth potential and holds on to those stocks regardless of short-term price fluctuations, negative media coverage, and downgrades by stock analysts. Today, Buffett is the second richest American with $40 billion in assets.
Bush isn't particularly interested in his place in history, either. Like any good CEO, he simply wants results and views challenges as opportunities. But he is also aware of how transitory opinion polls can be.
When Truman left office, his approval rating stood at 25 percent. Yet today, because of his firm approach to national security, Truman — whom the press portrayed as a simpleton — is viewed as one of the great presidents.
Similarly, the media have portrayed Bush as a buffoon, a religious fanatic, or a monster with the temerity to topple a man who had killed 300,000 people, not to mention liberating 50 million people.
In the same way, Democratic papers and critics disparaged Abraham Lincoln as a "dictator, ridiculed him as a baboon, damned him as stupid and incompetent . . ." according to Stephen B. Oates' book, "With Malice Toward None."
Ronald Reagan was portrayed by the media as a bellicose fool. When Reagan appealed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," liberals cringed. Yet Reagan's policy of dramatically increasing defense spending eventually convinced the Soviets essentially to give up, leading to a Russian democracy.
Righteous Leaders Always Stay the Course
Ultimately, the distortions in the media rub off on voters. But despite the criticism, these leaders stayed the course. They understood, as country music singer Toby Keith sang in "American Soldier," that "freedom don't come free."
"Instead of approaching each day saying, ‘How do I get through the day?' the president approaches problems by saying, ‘How do we solve the problem?'" Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former director of White House political affairs, told me. "Franklin Roosevelt did the same thing for the country. Ronald Reagan did that for the country."
Thus, when it comes to national security, Bush is not about to cut and run in Iraq, confirming Osama bin Laden's portrayal of the U.S. as a "paper tiger." He is not about to stop listening to calls between al-Qaida and U.S. operatives as they order the next 9/11 attack.
He is not about to cave on the USA Patriot Act. Doing so would prevent FBI agents from talking to each other about the same case and prevent the CIA from sharing clues to impending terrorist plots with the FBI.
Bush's policies have paid off.
They have enabled the FBI and CIA, often with the help of foreign partners, to roll up some 5,000 terrorists since 9/11. That success story, in turn, is a major reason we have not been attacked since 9/11. But you will never see the headline "5,000 Terrorists Rolled Up Since 9/11" in The New York Times or The Washington Post.
"The fact is that he does compromise," Nick Calio, Bush's top legislative aide in the first term, told me. "He just waits to do it until it's the right time to maximize what we got out of it. We compromised on each tax bill. On No Child Left Behind, there were compromises. On forming a 9/11 commission, we compromised, for good reason."
At the same time, Bush really does not care about polls, said Calio, now senior vice president for global government affairs at Citigroup.
"He used to say when we were talking about an issue and going down the recommendations, even if the issue was highly politically charged, ‘Look, we've only got a short period of time here. If that turns out to be four years instead of eight, if we do what we think is right, then so be it,'" Calio said. "I would say, ‘We can't do that. We're going to be killed.' But he would not wobble. He has the courage of his own convictions. He will say, ‘That's why I was elected.'"
Bush's Mantra: Keep America Safe
Thus, on key issues like national security, Bush's goal is not to win approval from Nancy Pelosi, Paul Krugman, or Keith Olbermann.
Bush's goal is far simpler: He wants to go back to Texas knowing that he did all he could to prevent another 9/11 attack on America.
This republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By Ronald Kessler
Now that voters have voted for change, President Bush will surely recognize the error of his ways and change direction, or so the media spin goes.
Wrong.
If you were president on 9/11 and wished you had done more to prevent the deaths of almost 3,000 people, would you change direction if you believed your policies were helping prevent the next terrorist attack?
That is at the heart of Bush's approach — and at the heart of the public's misunderstanding about the man.
Straightforward Leadership
To be sure, Bush will do what he can to accommodate the other side. Behind the scenes, he has had breakfast with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and has invited her to White House functions. But in many ways, Bush is an anti-politician. He loves being with people; he loves campaigning; and he loves to win. But like Harry Truman, he has an aversion to the acting and pretense of politics.
"He dislikes snobs, hypocrites, the glitterati, and the so-called intelligentsia," Collister "Terry" Johnson Jr., one of Bush's roommates at Yale, told me. "He dislikes all that stuff because he thinks it's phony."
In the opinion of Clay Johnson III, another Yale roommate who is deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bush's distaste for pretense is why he makes his trademark smirks or half smiles, a gesture that many interpret as arrogance. When responding to loaded questions from reporters, Bush signals, ever so subtly, what he really thinks.
The smirk is not a sign of arrogance but rather an effort to convey his feeling that he is participating in a charade.
'What You See Is What You Get'
"He's a bad actor, a bad pretender," Johnson said. "He doesn't get up and say, ‘One and one is two,' unless he really knows it's two. What you see is what you get. So when you see him working that lip or showing discomfort, he can't act that away. It means he's bored or perturbed. A real actor would not show that."
As Bush's approval ratings started to plunge over the Iraq war, the media depicted the White House as distraught and distracted. But they never got what Bush is all about. He did not seek office to win popularity.
He ran to achieve long-term fundamental change that would leave the country and the world a better, safer place.
Like Warren Buffett, Bush keeps his eyes on the horizon. Buffett invests in companies he believes have long-term growth potential and holds on to those stocks regardless of short-term price fluctuations, negative media coverage, and downgrades by stock analysts. Today, Buffett is the second richest American with $40 billion in assets.
Bush isn't particularly interested in his place in history, either. Like any good CEO, he simply wants results and views challenges as opportunities. But he is also aware of how transitory opinion polls can be.
When Truman left office, his approval rating stood at 25 percent. Yet today, because of his firm approach to national security, Truman — whom the press portrayed as a simpleton — is viewed as one of the great presidents.
Similarly, the media have portrayed Bush as a buffoon, a religious fanatic, or a monster with the temerity to topple a man who had killed 300,000 people, not to mention liberating 50 million people.
In the same way, Democratic papers and critics disparaged Abraham Lincoln as a "dictator, ridiculed him as a baboon, damned him as stupid and incompetent . . ." according to Stephen B. Oates' book, "With Malice Toward None."
Ronald Reagan was portrayed by the media as a bellicose fool. When Reagan appealed to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," liberals cringed. Yet Reagan's policy of dramatically increasing defense spending eventually convinced the Soviets essentially to give up, leading to a Russian democracy.
Righteous Leaders Always Stay the Course
Ultimately, the distortions in the media rub off on voters. But despite the criticism, these leaders stayed the course. They understood, as country music singer Toby Keith sang in "American Soldier," that "freedom don't come free."
"Instead of approaching each day saying, ‘How do I get through the day?' the president approaches problems by saying, ‘How do we solve the problem?'" Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former director of White House political affairs, told me. "Franklin Roosevelt did the same thing for the country. Ronald Reagan did that for the country."
Thus, when it comes to national security, Bush is not about to cut and run in Iraq, confirming Osama bin Laden's portrayal of the U.S. as a "paper tiger." He is not about to stop listening to calls between al-Qaida and U.S. operatives as they order the next 9/11 attack.
He is not about to cave on the USA Patriot Act. Doing so would prevent FBI agents from talking to each other about the same case and prevent the CIA from sharing clues to impending terrorist plots with the FBI.
Bush's policies have paid off.
They have enabled the FBI and CIA, often with the help of foreign partners, to roll up some 5,000 terrorists since 9/11. That success story, in turn, is a major reason we have not been attacked since 9/11. But you will never see the headline "5,000 Terrorists Rolled Up Since 9/11" in The New York Times or The Washington Post.
"The fact is that he does compromise," Nick Calio, Bush's top legislative aide in the first term, told me. "He just waits to do it until it's the right time to maximize what we got out of it. We compromised on each tax bill. On No Child Left Behind, there were compromises. On forming a 9/11 commission, we compromised, for good reason."
At the same time, Bush really does not care about polls, said Calio, now senior vice president for global government affairs at Citigroup.
"He used to say when we were talking about an issue and going down the recommendations, even if the issue was highly politically charged, ‘Look, we've only got a short period of time here. If that turns out to be four years instead of eight, if we do what we think is right, then so be it,'" Calio said. "I would say, ‘We can't do that. We're going to be killed.' But he would not wobble. He has the courage of his own convictions. He will say, ‘That's why I was elected.'"
Bush's Mantra: Keep America Safe
Thus, on key issues like national security, Bush's goal is not to win approval from Nancy Pelosi, Paul Krugman, or Keith Olbermann.
Bush's goal is far simpler: He wants to go back to Texas knowing that he did all he could to prevent another 9/11 attack on America.
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