Posted on 09/24/2008 7:15:41 PM PDT by markomalley
Congress took on the $700 billion bailout on Tuesday with what Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, called “the most palpable sense of national crisis since we gathered here in this building immediately following the 9/11 attacks.”
That’s not exactly how it looked to those trying to follow the testimony of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Crisis connotes rolled-up sleeves, pots of coffee and the casting aside of protocol, ceremony and partisan grandstanding. Instead, what viewers saw was Washington as usual: senators pontificating while behind them aides whispered and sent text messages on their BlackBerrys.
Congress still doesn’t seem to understand that the camera not only adds 10 pounds, it also takes away dignity and self-serving excuses.
(snip)
What none of the senators were ready to do was apologize for their own mistakes. Mr. Dodd, who has received more contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s political action committees and employees ($133,900 since 1989) than any other senator, didn’t mention lapses in Congressional oversight. Instead, he said he began warning Mr. Bernanke many months ago about the housing crisis, blaming absentee regulators and “reckless, careless and sometimes unscrupulous actors in the mortgage lending industry.”
Senator Elizabeth Dole, Republican of North Carolina, used her time to take aim at “Congressional apologists” for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who blocked legislation she and other Republicans had proposed to rein them in. She said an “army of lobbyists” had spent as much as $100 million to thwart reform efforts. “As we know, one of my committee colleagues proclaimed in April 2005 that Fannie and Freddie have done, and I quote, ‘a very, very good job.’ ” She was referring to Mr. Schumer.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Most Americans knew these “hearings” were a joke and a fraud when Dodd wasn’t taken out in handcuffs.
I hear a wind ... BLOWHARDs.
The crooks in congress are setting us up.
Our junior senator, Evan `Always a bridesmaid’ Bayh, Jr. sounds like some here with that overblown, histrionic rhetoric (”mARtIANS ARE zOTTtING OUR cITIES!”)
I wrote Rep. Pence, told him he was right on the money.
How can you tell when a Chicken Little econo-liberal is dead?
His/her heart stops bleeding ....
NO BAIL-OUT!
Our junior senator, Evan `Always a bridesmaid’ Bayh, Jr. sounds like some here with that overblown, histrionic rhetoric (”mARtIANS ARE zOTTtING OUR cITIES!”)
I wrote Rep. Pence, told him he was right on the money.
How can you tell when a Chicken Little econo-liberal is dead?
His/her heart stops bleeding ....
NO BAIL-OUT!
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