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Thanks for your thoughtful analysis. I was a big fan of Levin from 2004 till last year 2008 and bought and read his book on the Courts and constitution. I even refered many friends to his show and most complained to me about the way he cuts off callers. Rush repeats similar narratives I pointed out but Rush is polite to his guests and lets them get their points across. (I got Rush 24/7 last December and have listened to him since 1992).

If I were to call Levin and challenge him to any of his talking points he would cut off my mike and berate and insult me. Levin sets up an 'us against all of them' world where if you disagree with him you are almost a terrorist. Read the replies on the Levin example I posted and they sound exactly like him, just by disagreeing with him I am stupid, I am the enemy, I am helping 'The Left'.

You know what? Sometimes these 'so called' conservatives are wrong. All the after the fact finger pointing on the housing crisis and the CRA and look at the credit card bill democrats sent to Obama to sign. It is very moderate and makes it harder for credit card companies to lure the gullible (the so called CRA bad credit deadbeats) by subprime adjustable rate credit card debt that brought down the housing market . . Why the hell couldn't republicans pass a popular reform like this when in power that is consistent with their late 2008 CRA theme?? Instead they passed a bill to make it harder to use bankruptcy to clear the debt once these gullible/clueless get trapped. They could have added these reasonable reforms to that bankrupcy bill.(I never pay interest myself and I get bonus points so this is not personal either!)You know how this makes republicans look to voters? Especially with TARP??

Republicans didnt reform credit card policies because when republicans were in power (up to last fall) 'easy luring credit (card traps) was the engine of economic growth 'was the conservative theme then. This blame CRA theory did not get invented by conservatives/republicans till it all crashed in October 2008.

I know I will get hate pings for claiming anything that gets passed is good, for helping the left, Bla-Bla-Bla.

I agree with your review of Mark Levin entirely. I understand why he does it but it is so counterproductive that it will begin to impose limits on his ability to continue to grow.

He does it for the same reason that Rush Limbaugh assumes the role of braggadocio, to compensate for a felt prejudice against conservatism and conservatives which still exists in our society. When Limbaugh first came onto the scene he was regarded to be an unnatural oddity instead of a political commentator with forceful views. To be a conservative of Limbaugh's stripe in the late 80s was to be more than a novelty it was to be eccentric. So Limbaugh fought for intellectual respectability by claiming superior insight.

Similarly Levin's attempts to disparage the legitimacy of liberals is an attempt to level the playing field, or should I say, the battlefield. I believe that Levin is ill advised to continue this practice because it confirms every leftists' prejudice about conservatives as Neanderthals.

I think the Republicans would have been well advised to force transparency on the credit card companies but I think there were legitimate objections to the Democrats bankruptcy bill.

Why the hell couldn't republicans pass a popular reform like this when in power that is consistent with their late 2008 CRA theme??

Some of the worst credit card abuses happened after Obama was elected, and of course the Dems have had majorities in congress for some time now. I think part of the story is that, from a political point of view, the time is ripe now for credit card reform. As others have argued, this bill may have some unintended negative consequences, such as new fees for those with good credit.

OTOH, if the Rs were in control now, would they have pushed such a bill? Why won't either party push reform of the credit bureaus? Why do I have to pay to see my own credit information, especially since so much of the information they keep is incorrect or fraudulent?