You’ve seen it before. Someone experiences success and their time is in great demand. Interviews. The talk show circuit. A book. Inquiring minds want to know, ever so eager for those golden nuggets, the “keys to success.”
Failure also leaves clues. It’s why Congressional commissions are assigned to investigate government’s failures. To leave no rock unturned as they dig deep to find the root causes of catastrophe and make recommendations to avoid reoccurrence.
I use as an example “The 9/11 Commission Report.” Published in 2004, it’s over 550 pages detailing the circumstances that made us vulnerable to terrorism, and suggested actions to keep us safe from future attacks.
The media upheld its responsibility to the public by checking most of its bias and providing extensive coverage of “The 9/11 Commission Report.”
Note the word “most.”
Certainly there were instances when the media questioned out loud whether the Bush Administration did everything it could to prevent the 9/11 attacks. But by simply providing coverage of the 9/11 report, the media alerted clear-thinking Americans to it. And by reading it, we found the report never indicated the Bush Administration was warned or could have prevented terrorists from crashing planes into our buildings.
But sadly, the actions of the media over the past few years suggest objectivity, even if occasionally tinged with bias, is a virtue lost. The media of today deprives Americans of impartiality. The media of today selectively chooses news and the manner in which it is covered.
The media, now the leftist media, has become the liberal mouthpiece. It again demonstrated its bias by refusing to cover a recently released Congressional committee report on the number one issue on the minds of a majority of Americans: The economy, why it failed, and what led to recession.
That Americans are concerned about the economy is understandable. Unemployment at levels not seen in decades. The business sector deteriorating. The unusually long recession.
The economic collapse is tied to a linchpin – the failed financial system. Fanny Mae. Freddie Mac. Their disintegration caused the dominos to fall and dragged the economy down with it.
The “U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform” was assigned to investigate what caused the collapse of the financial sector. What mistakes were made? Who made them? Identify lessons learned so the same mistakes are not be made again.
The study is complete. The report entitled, The Role of Government Affordable Housing Policy in Creating the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 was published in July 2009.
The report is thorough. It provides specific reasons why Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac failed. It identifies the mistakes that caused, as the report states, “a mortgage tsunami that wrought devastation on the American people and the economy.”
You haven’t heard about the report? Are you curious why the media has not covered it? Do you wonder why, if the media can provide extensive coverage to false stories about U.S. soldiers flushing Korans down toilets, it fails to mention a fact-based government commission report that identifies the factors that led to economic collapse?
The reasons are apparent. Some are found in the first chapter of the report: The Introduction. Following are a few excerpts. (Key points underlined for emphasis.):
- Government intervention also created “affordable” but dangerous lending policies which encouraged lower down payments, looser underwriting standards and higher leverage.
- Government intervention created a nexus of vested interests – politicians, lenders and lobbyists – who profited from the “affordable” housing market and acted to kill reforms.
- Government “affordable housing” initiatives offer important lesson about the dangers of government efforts to manipulate or conjure outcomes in the market.
The report is clear. Government played a major role in causing the collapse of the financial market. And though no names are mentioned, the person most responsible for protecting Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac, the person who did whatever he could to “kill reforms,” the architect behind the socialist, “affordable to all” failed housing policy is Representative Barney Frank.
As far back as 2003, even the Bush Administration recognized the problems at Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were severe and dangerous. If not corrected they could send a rippling effect throughout the entire financial sector.
The Bush Administration called on Congress to create a new agency within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The purpose of this agency was to correct poor practices that were leading these financial institutions into ruin.
Barney Frank, as ranking member of the House Financial Committee, protected Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac from scrutiny. In response to calls for oversight, Frank said, “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”
Barney Frank used the power of his position to sow the seeds of his misguided social engineering. Time and again, Frank thwarted attempts to investigate the questionable practices ongoing at Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.
With Barney Frank providing top cover, Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac were managed into ruin. We’ve seen the results. The financial sector collapsed. The economy crashed. Recession followed.
Barney Frank, supposedly a financial wizard, failed. He assisted the financial meltdown that invigorated the economic downturn and fueled recession.
President Obama recently said, “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”
“Get out of the way,” our president says. Except if the failure is named Barney Frank. For you see, Frank supports our president’s socialist agenda. So failure or not, Frank remains.
And how does the leftist media react?
The leftist media refuses to cover the Congressional report that offers proof that our government’s socialist agenda played a key role in causing the economic collapse.
The leftist media refuses to ask why Barney Frank isn’t forced to step down from his Financial Committee position because of gross negligence.
The leftist media refuses to ask why Barney Frank, the financial failure, is now involved in deciding the fate of the U.S. health care system.
Instead, the leftist media protects failures like Barney Frank. The leftist media protects Frank because he is part of Team Obama. The leftist media will protect the president they helped elect, even if it means obliterating every tenet of journalism.
There was a time when you turned on the evening news and could be confident you were receiving news that was important, no issues buried, and that the coverage was thorough and predominantly objective.
Those days are over.
The leftist media now picks and chooses the news. “Newsworthy” means avoiding fact-based reports that might shed a poor light on a president the leftist media openly campaigned for and championed. It means protecting the members of the president’s team.
You may not agree with it. But get used to it.
It’s part of the leftist media’s role in “Hope and Change.”
God Bless our troops in harm’s way.
Poz
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