Bush Tortured; Cheney Lied

Or should it be the other way around? Anyway, they didn't. I just wanted to see if I could generate some more hits to this site.

Bill Kristol's bashing of the interrogation memos' release on the Fox News panel last week is followed up by a column in the Weekly Standard. He really gives it to Obama and the rest of the phony moralists in his party.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/419lgkxx.asp

In a similar vein and even more critical is former CIA head Porter Goss' op-ed in the Washington Post yesterday. He makes it clear that members of Congress knew exactly what was going on with the enhanced interrogation program. They not only didn't raise any objections, but offered encouragement.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403339.html

This point has been made by others but it's worth repeating. Four former CIA heads, who served under both Democratic and Republican Presidents, and the present one, Obama's own choice, Leon Panetta, advised him against releasing the interrogation memos. Yet he did and if that wasn't a purely political decision, then there's no such thing.

Anyone up for some more evidence of Barney Frank's responsibility for the economic meltdown? Here it is.
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/04/24/video-frank-in-2005-bubble-what-bubble/
Read this obtuse statement of his made June 27, 2005.

I think we have an excessive degree of concern right now about home ownership and its role in the economy. Obviously, speculation is never a good thing. But those who argue that housing prices are now at the point of a bubble seem to me to missing a very important point. Unlike previous examples we have had, where substantial excessive inflation of prices later caused some problems, we are talking here about an entity — home ownership, homes — where there is not the degree of leverage we have seen elsewhere. This is not the dot-com situation; we have problems with people having invested in business plans for which there was no reality. People building fiber-optic cable for which there was no need. Homes that are occupied may see an ebb and flow in the price at a certain percentage level, but you’re not going to see the collapse that you see when people talk about a bubble. And so, those of us on our committee in particular, will continue to push for home ownership.

"...there is not the degree of leverage we have seen elsewhere." Well that was certainly true. Leveraging never was anywhere near as high as what it was during the housing bubble. That statement ranks right up there with some other gems Frank made supporting subsidized housing.

“These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis.” (they are) “fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios.

"I believe there has been more alarm raised about potential unsafety and unsoundness than, in fact, exists."

"I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing."

Problem was, Frank was rolling the dice using taxpayers money.

It's a revolting spectacle watching Frank presiding over the House Financial Services Committee, passing judgement on those he decides are culpable for the mess we're in. It's not reassuring for the prospects of a meaningful recovery that he's still chairman of that committee.


Fred Barnes had the best take on Obama's first hundred days comparing it to a man jumping off the roof of a skyscraper and halfway down saying, "So far, so good."