Cowardice on Fannie/Freddie

Peter J. Wallison, of the WSJ, brings to light a couple of important points on the current financial mess. First, contrary to Obama's claims (he's wrong again) this crisis did not happen because of deregulation:

While there has been significant deregulation in the U.S. economy during the last 30 years, none of it has occurred in the financial sector.

Second, Obama himself bears complicity. By his own account, Obama wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Treasury that the subprime loan situation was dangerous. Here is what happenned next:

In the summer of 2005, a bill emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate.

However, Obama was unwilling to confront his own party on this issue, an issue in which he claims to have had "special" knowledge that a crisis was in the offing. This is the most revealing example of political cowardice I can imagine. The job description of Senator is to vote on legislation. Legislation was offered that might have mitigated the current crisis. Obama claims he knew a crisis was brewing. He did nothing. Great leadership.

H/T HotAir.

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Biden's "New" Message: McCain is Bush III... Yawn

According to Victoria McGrane, in today's Politico, Joe Biden hit John McCain HARD, showing the country how he is just like Bush. News flash to Team Barry, the man at left is not running for President. Also, isn't this what you've been doing for three months?

Stop the presses. I must be suffering from "déjà vu all over again."

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Obama's "New" Message: McCain is Bush III... Yawn

According to Michael Goodwin, in today's New York Daily News, Barack Obama is about to hit John McCain HARD, showing the country how he is just like Bush. News flash to Team Barry, the man at left is not running for President. Also, isn't this what you've been doing for three months?

I've been away from the blogging for a few days, my apologies to those who checked in looking for new posts. Aside from some personal reasons to take a break, I could not, for the life of me, find anything new Obama had to say lately. It seemed all Palin, all the time. Obama is just not breaking into the news cycle. Ever since his standard Lib-Dem convention speech, he seems to have vanished from the news cycle.

Looking around for clues, I found this article at the Detroit Free Press asserting that both candidates are avoiding hot button issues. It then gives a run down on their stand on various issues. Here is the money quote:

Obama, on the other hand, generally follows the standard liberal line. But he does so in a carefully modulated way that shows -- or attempts to -- his respect for opinions different than his.

Obama is a liberal who tries to be nice when he talks about the issues. Even though he claims to want a debate on the issues, I think he senses he is on the losing side of most arguments about guns, late term abortions, affirmative action, and taxes. The one issue where opinion polls seem to favor his position is "universal health care." But even though the polls seem to favor his approach, it starts to unravel when the actual cost of imposing the taxes, regulation and restrictions necessary are really understood by the voters.

Back to Goodwin's article:

The decision to stick with a mostly-nasty approach should finally end the myth that the Obama campaign is a flawless machine. It had an extraordinarily appealing candidate, a message of change to an unhappy nation and made brilliant tactical decisions that defeated the Clintons.

I see Obama pulling a Romney. Obama had a lot of time as the front runner to really define himself with more details than just "hope and change," but like Romney he chose to go negative rather than use his lead to give his brand name a specific identity. He has ceded that task to his opponent. His meteoric drop amongst the odds-makers to be the next President is the result.

Post-script: A quick note about the "horse race" aspect of the election. Over at RealClearPolitics.com they have an electoral map with no toss up states. It is instructive to see that if polls are to be believed, Obama would lose the popular vote but still be elected President were the election to be held today. Although I don't really believe that, it is instructive to see that the electoral map has shifted very little from 2000 or 2004. It will come down to Ohio, Colorado, Michigan or some other swing state, in all likelihood. The bad news is that McCain is probably going to be outspent. The good news is that Obama seems to have wasted a good deal of cash on a "50 state" strategy, when in fact less than 10 states are really going to matter.

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Standing Up for Community Organizers

Those of you who follow Iowahawk know that David Burge is also running for President. Unlike Obama, he is capable of delivering a smack down to Sarah Palin over her community organizer comments. Just to give Obama his due (second time today for me) I have plagiarized Burge's description of the duties of community organizers.

• reach out and work with communities in various ways.
• liaison with, and for, community agencies for service within affected areas.
• fight to make a difference.
• raise awareness.
• deal with community issues.
• raise awareness in the community of how we are making differences about undealt-with issues .
• when necessary, refer inquiries to outreach coordinators.
• Help coordination agency administrators identify and address outreach opportunities.
• model timetables and conceptualize benchmarks.
• issue guidelines for poster contests and interpretive dance festivals.
• Gather voter registrations, win valuable prizes.

Are we clear now?