I sense you are exposing the tips of multitudes of your brainwashed iceberg.
Heartening as it is to hear the growing criticism of
Bush from within the GOP ranks, the idea that he's veered from conservatism is hogwash. Bush is the most conservative president we've had since probably Warren G. Harding—and perhaps ever. He has governed, wherever possible, fully in step with the basic conservative principles that defined Ronald Reagan's presidency and have shaped the political right for the last two generations: opposition to New Deal-style social programs; a view of civil liberties as obstacles to dispensing justice; the pursuit of low taxes, especially on businesses and the wealthy; a pro-business stance on regulation; a hawkish, militaristic, nationalistic foreign policy; and a commitment to bringing religion, and specifically Christianity, back into public policy. "Mr. Bush has a philosophy. It is conservative," wrote Peggy Noonan in 2002. Ah, but times change. Last June she complained, "What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them."
It's certainly true that Bush hasn't delivered on every last item on the conservative wish list. But what president has—or ever could? What Bush's new critics on the right don't see, or won't see, is that to credibly accuse Bush of betraying "conservatism" requires constructing an ideal of conservatism that exists only in the world of theory, not the world of practical politics and democratic governance. It's an ideal that any president would fail to meet. In a democracy, governing means taking into account public opinion and making compromises. That means deviating at times from doctrinal purity.
Indeed, Bush's presidency, far from being a subversion of modern American conservatism, represents its fulfillment. For most of the president's tenure, many of the same folks who now brand him as an incompetent or an impostor happily backed his agenda. Republicans controlled the Senate and the House with iron discipline. They populated the federal court system, built a powerful media apparatus, and, for years after 9/11, benefited from a public climate of reflexive deference to the powers that be. From 2001 to 2007, the conservative movement had as free a hand as it could have hoped for in setting the agenda. The fruits of its efforts are Bush's policies.
So while conservatives may be disillusioned with Bush, they can't seriously claim it's over his policies. Another explanation seems more likely: When the Iraq War really turned sour in 2005 and the domestic catastrophes piled up, the appeal of being linked with Bush's legacy dimmed. Like mobsters turning state's evidence before they're sent up the river, former Bushies began to testify, throwing themselves on the mercy of the court of public opinion. The reason isn't that Bush is an imperfect conservative. It's that he's an unsuccessful one.
What iceberg next...Freddie, Fanny, Community Investment Act, ACORN?
Let's start here:
Here is what we DO know:
1) The financial crisis was not caused by low and middle income families buying a home.
2) It was not caused by dead beat poor people.
3) Fannie and Freddie were not to cause.
4) The Community Investment Act was not the culprit either.
The crisis was caused by private lending, to mostly upper middle class and the wealthy. ONLY 6% of of all the higher-priced loans were extended by CRA-covered lenders to lower-income borrowers or neighborhoods in their CRA assessment areas. The majority of those foreclosed on were wealthy and upper middle class, plus a huge segment of speculators; buyers who were wealthy home flippers looking for a fast buck. They strategically walked away from investments that went sour, not from their 'homes'. They never had any intent on living there.
Only a huge amount of mortgage defaults at once could cause a rupture of the housing market. And only a huge amount of speculators dumping 'bad' investments all at once could explain it. Because if it were honest citizens who were buying a homestead, they kept paying even when they should have walked away. If those were the people to blame, it would have been a slow leak, not a rupture.
AND, what really sucks for the right wing propaganda of lies, all the way back to the late '90's there was one very outspoken and vocal critic of predatory lending practices, they even held protests at companies like Wells Fargo and Lehman Brothers...ACORN
But, if you need to make government the scapegoat for the private sector, it brings us full circle...Bush.
Maybe you just FORGOT...
Bush's 'ownership society'
"America is a stronger country every single time a family moves into a home of their own," George W. Bush said in October 2004. To achieve his vision, Bush pushed new policies encouraging homeownership, like the "zero-down-payment initiative," which was much as it sounds—a government-sponsored program that allowed people to get mortgages without a down payment. More exotic mortgages followed, including ones with no monthly payments for the first two years. Other mortgages required no documentation other than the say-so of the borrower. Absurd though these all were, they paled in comparison to the financial innovations that grew out of the mortgages—derivatives built on other derivatives, packaged and repackaged until no one could identify what they contained and how much they were, in fact, worth.
As we know by now, these instruments have brought the global financial system, improbably, to the brink of collapse.
End of the ‘Ownership Society’
