Do Facts Matter?

By Thomas Sowell

<link> | Abraham Lincoln said, "You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time."

Unfortunately, the future of this country, as well as the fate of the Western world, depends on how many people can be fooled on election day, just a few weeks from now.

Right now, the polls indicate that a whole lot of the people are being fooled a whole lot of the time.

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?

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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?

We also hear that it is the free market that is to blame. But the facts show that it was the government that pressured financial institutions in general to lend to subprime borrowers, with such things as the Community Reinvestment Act and, later, threats of legal action by then Attorney General Janet Reno if the feds did not like the statistics on who was getting loans and who wasn't.

Is that the free market? Or do facts not matter?

Then there is the question of being against the "greed" of CEOs and for "the people." Franklin Raines made $90 million while he was head of Fannie Mae and mismanaging that institution into crisis.

Who in Congress defended Franklin Raines? Liberal Democrats, including Maxine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus, at least one of whom referred to the "lynching" of Raines, as if it was racist to hold him to the same standard as white CEOs.

Even after he was deposed as head of Fannie Mae, Franklin Raines was consulted this year by the Obama campaign for his advice on housing!

The Washington Post criticized the McCain campaign for calling Raines an adviser to Obama, even though that fact was reported in the Washington Post itself on July 16th. The technicality and the spin here is that Raines is not officially listed as an adviser. But someone who advises is an adviser, whether or not his name appears on a letterhead.

The tie between Barack Obama and Franklin Raines is not all one-way. Obama has been the second-largest recipient of Fannie Mae's financial contributions, right after Senator Christopher Dodd.

But ties between Obama and Raines? Not if you read the mainstream media.

Facts don't matter much politically if they are not reported.

The media alone are not alone in keeping the facts from the public. Republicans, for reasons unknown, don't seem to know what it is to counter-attack. They deserve to lose.

But the country does not deserve to be put in the hands of a glib and cocky know-it-all, who has accomplished absolutely nothing beyond the advancement of his own career with rhetoric, and who has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America.

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Comment on JWR contributor Thomas Sowell's column by clicking here.

But, but, but...Bush Bad. What really makes you think is if Dems put off this crisis(oversight remember) in order to tank the economy before the election. Think about what was their rallying cry in the beginning,,IRAQ IS LOST....now that Iraq is more stable and the surge has worked they needed another crisis to harp on.

wise up!

Eerie the timing on this, wouldn't you say? What with the election in a month.

Thomas Sowell is a conservative columnist with his own bias.

Should I link a columnist with a well-known liberal bias?

Would you pay any attention?

I've been researching this same issue for a few days. I noted that B. Frank and Dodd had stymied acts to create tougher regulation of Fannie and Freddie and others. It's not good news that any politician would look out for a giant rather than the American people. I will be looking hard at this and sending my emails to them and all who I can when I've uncovered the truth.

It's a very important issue.

Regards.

Good point MsP...but, who wants to look at both sides! Not many!!!!!

Congress has been warned by one expert or another for as much as a decade that we were headed for an economic collapse due to the excesses of Fannie and Freddie.

It is a shame to think that lawmakers would be more interested in lining their own pockets than seeing to the security of the nations economy.

I am hearing the other side in the press almost relentlessly. I mean, Bush bad, culture of deregulation, republicans doing nothing.

I am all for engaging in both sides of the debate. Why isn't the MSM willing to engage in both sides. They are supposed to be unbias, right?

Typical. The credit crisis began three years ago w/ gov't loving repubs pushing hard for more regulations. Gov't hating dems fought 'em tooth and nail, and the complicit liberal media all got together decided to lie about it all.

Welcom to Bizzarro World.

I wish it was Bizzarro. Unfortunately Rangle and Dodd and Obama have been lining their own pockets while fighting against regulation of 2 GSEs that various economists have been warning us against their excesses for as long as a decade.

Unfortunately, that world is all too real.

Terrortoon:

I am hearing the other side in the press almost relentlessly. I mean, Bush bad, culture of deregulation, republicans doing nothing.

I am all for engaging in both sides of the debate. Why isn't the MSM willing to engage in both sides. They are supposed to be unbias, right?

Well, my local newspaper is conservative on every issue but illegal immigration. Most days the front page is some sad story about some poor illegal that is supposed to draw sympathy and make us all change our minds. The second section tells small stories about some crime committed by one.

I'm sure very soon the paper will endorse McCain. Never a negative story about a Republican (unless it's Sheriff Joe and his "raids" on illegal immigrant drop-houses or businesses that employ them) but Obama??? Every story you have ever heard on FOX is covered.

So you see Toon....it is difficult for any of us to get both sides of any story anywhere...

Our paper here is liberal as the day is long. They literally ignore stories that are bad for democrats while pushing stories that show republicans in the worst light possible. This is the paper that claimed it was endorsing Doyle for governor based on his excellent record of maintaining balanced budgets, and then, after the election, finally came out with the "Wisconsin has 2 billion dollar shortfall" story.

None the less, I don't think, even in this environment, you can use a local paper as proof of the bias of the national media.

Sowell won't mention something that happened 10 years ago. In Bizzarro World you merely discard facts that implicate repubs, and blame everything on Bush haters and the 'gold-durned librul media'.

Our paper has a blackout on the GOP. There is NO NADA news about McCain or the GOP, but the front page, page three, the letters, and several "events" were all about Obama.

Our paper is published once a week. They took out the TV schedule recently, doubled prices, and the police blog is longer than the Jr High and High School sports pages (size of the picture matters).