When Jonah Goldberg and Stanley Kurtz are pushing a David Brooks piece on Reckless Endangerment (the book I earlier pitched that traces to the Bill Clinton, the Democrats, and their Wall Street cronies the source for today’s economic crisis)…well, that famed and glorious crease in Obama’s pants can’t be feeling all that comfy with itself these days, let’s just say.
Kurtz:
I’ve only had a chance to give Reckless Endangerment a quick look, but my impression is that it tells the right story, if a bit too much from Fannie Mae’s point of view. In Morgenson and Rosner’s telling, Fannie Mae effectively buys off ACORN and other low-income housing groups. There’s some truth to that, but it underestimates the extent to which ACORN and allied groups forced Fannie Mae into the subprime business in the first place, and sometimes pushed themselves onto Fannie Mae against resistance.
I tell that story in the ACORN chapter of Radical-in-Chief, based on heretofore unseen documents from the ACORN archive at the Wisconsin Historical Society. I also show that Barack Obama was knee-deep in ACORN activities just as their banking campaign reached its height. In fact, much of ACORN’s national housing campaign in the mid-nineties was coordinated from the Chicago office Obama was funneling money to at the time.
So if the combination of the publication of Reckless Endangerment and Michelle Bachmann’s campaign brings a new awareness of Fannie Mae’s role in precipitating the financial crisis, by rights it also ought to raise awareness of ACORN’s role, and Obama’s abetment of ACORN activism as well. Of course, for that very reason, the entire story is likely to be ignored. Maybe only someone like Bachmann has the power to break it through.
Every conservative, classical liberal, libertarian, or TEA Party Dem should own a copy of Reckless Endangerment and be able to cite from it chapter and verse.
The mainstream press will simply not pounce on this story with any degree of rigor — just as (with the exception of some courageous work by one CBS reporter) they are largely ignoring a story that may be far more serious than Iran-Contra ever was — so it is incumbent upon the citizenry to inform one another and get around that mainstream press, which has become the propaganda arm of the progressive movement and, incredibly, a practically ostentatious shield for the Obama administration.
(thanks to geoffb)
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update: related.
Meh…
This will just be a time when Brooks’ opinion won’t be found to be quite as valid to the usual suspects; I suspect he won’t be asked onto Chris Matthews Sunday show anytime soon, based on this.
But the facts are that this, and the burgeoning gunrunner scandal, are perhaps worse that Iran-Contra in the number of rank-and-file individuals effected.
If we’re fortunate, there’ll be as complete an airing of the roots of the economic meltdown during the 2012 campaign; as the Rethugs! pushback against Obama’s policies and his arguments that the cause was simply BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!.
An outright dare. That we’ve not taken.
Waco: ATF, in the pursuit of a few headlines and funding, starts a flashy operation, is indirectly involved in the shooting of some US agents and winds up involved in the killing of civilians.
Flash forward to today; The ATF, in pursuit of a a few headlines and funding, starts a flashy operation, is indirectly involved in the shooting of US agents and winds up involved in the death of civilians.
Call me crazy, but not like ATF doesn’t have a history of stupidity that results in dead people.
And Brooks’ is just getting this? Now? This is something that many of us have realized for years…
Oh, and viz lobbying and campaign contributions? The largest recipients of Fannie’s campaign largesse between 1989 and 2008 were:
1) Chris Dodd
2) John Kerry
3) Barack Obama
4) Hillary Clinton
5) Paul Kanjorski
Unless, of course, one counts the value of Barney Franks conjugal servicing by his boyfriend that worked there. But in all fairness, Frank has never mentioned whethere Moses was good or not…
A quote from the update link, for no other reason than that it has what I thought a jarring use of the term “permitted”, contextually (that is, I have no particular quarrel with the fellow’s various theses, complaints, etc., more from a lack of any desire to trouble myself to think further about them than otherwise, I confess).
From the Brooks piece.
Leadership class? What I see here is Brooks attempting to sever the media/pundits from the governmental/corporate types of the “ruling class”. To pretend that those of his profession are still wearing flawless white while the financial blood of the nation is spattered all over the others in the ruling class. Thus the invention of a term, “leadership class” which leaves out the media players.
I do like the final line on the page.
Is there any day he isn’t?
Maybe Mr. R. Boyd could weigh in here… I suspect he could throw a few pretty scathing comments out on this one!
Maybe Brooks will come in for a little Kossack/TPM/Jurnolist fire and see how little his pants crease deference has bought him.
Meh. I have no interest in hearing an apologist explain why his profession is as corrupt as a liverwurst sausage left out in the Miami sun.
Peter Wallison has been on the case since the event. He’s still at it.
Might as well repost this link, in case a n00b wants to see it. It’s about how this latest housing crash is the fourth instance in a century where the gubmint has done this to us.
The largest recipients of Fannie’s campaign largesse between 1989 and 2008 were:
Bill Bennett (R-UT) was high on that list. Explains why he was primaried.
Bob Bennett, that is. Bill is the radio guy.
When I went to pitch book ideas there wasn’t much love to be had peddling an idea on Fannie/Freddie and the mortgage crisis. Not that they weren’t integral, but the word “mortgage” was considered a black plague upon general interest sales. True story.
I’m told it’s a brilliant book and I wish Gretchen and Josh peace and prosperity.
Rob,
I wrote critically about FNMA/FHLMC in the early summer of 2000 when I was at a small trade publication called BondWeek and recieved a corporate response from them that remains unprecedented in my career (to be fair, I managed to reprice the prices of their benchmark bonds based on the piece.) I never stopped writing critically about them until they became unsheathed for what they were in 2006.
Point is, you’ve got the wrong fellow in your sights, cashmere cowboy. Plenty of media people deserve a shot across the bow, but I’m not one of them….on this issue.
[…] Endangerment, and Subversion. Jeff Goldstein: When Jonah Goldberg and Stanley Kurtz are pushing a David Brooks piece on Reckless Endangerment […]
I believe that it was a Michigan Congressman who once referred to “The Jackbooted thugs of the BATF.”
A Michigan Democrat, if I’m not mistaken.