Through the Looking Glass

I am astounded by the dynamics of this race.

You have a "community organizer" whose resumé includes work at a law firm goading lenders to make subprime loans, a member of a party whose solons denied any problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, who essentially called the regulator a racist for even raising the issue of their lending practices and long-term solvency, who shouted down any attempt to regulate the system, and who had their hands all over the bailout rescue plan.

And how do they spin it and the compliant MSM report it? A failure of Republican deregulatory principles! As I said, astounding.

Two pieces affirm that I am not alone in wondering what the hell is wrong with this story, and with the people who are buying this lock, stock, and barrel. One is from our friends at PowerLine and the other from our greatest contemporary political thinker, Thomas Sowell. Here's an excerpt from the Sowell Man, but, by all means, read both in their entirety:

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?

Facts do matter, but in an election, too many people may fall for atmospherics, narratives, truthiness, and vague change. But the facts will out; I hope, for the sake of this country, not too late for serious, and possibly irrevocable, damage to be done.