Posted on 10/26/2008 7:41:42 PM PDT by Athena51
Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.
An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.
They end up worse off than before.
This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?
I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.
cont....
Thank you for posting this.....I heard this on Rush and I have been trying to find this to send to my lib sis in law....
The ‘last honest reporter’ already left the building.
Sorry but you’ll have to turn them out yourself.
The last HONEST reported died in a bar fight in 1900.
Probably didn’t show up...
That one was ‘turn OUT the lights.’
;o)
Card is also a best-selling science fiction author. If you haven’t read “Ender’s War”, pick it up at a used book store.
Thanks for the tip!
I knew the name sounded familiar.
Wife is looking now...
(She works at the library across the street. Rather handy!)
LOL I see it has been posted a few times.
I apologize.
No problem - at least it’s not the “Freep this PBS Sarah Palin Poll” thread......
The MSM once had people who went out and found the news. Now they have people who "network". It's a form of bribery.
. Well, not the traditional bribes. If someone tried to bribe an editor or reporter they'd be thrown out of every newsroom in the United States.
But, if an editor or reporter has established "sources" who happen to be dems - backed up by the corrupt civil service workers like the ones who "checked out" Joe the Plumber - that's GOLD.
The coin of the realm: People on the inside who will talk to you. Insiders who will feed accurate information like the Pentagon papers, stats on private citizens - the stuff it would take months for a reporter to find on his own. Handed on a platter. And the price? Sometime the head of a Republican. Or an unsaid agreement not to look to closely at some things... don't want to offend "friends" and all...
The MSM's love affair with the dems is bribery - paid with the coin that matters to "journalist". FOLLOW THE MONEY.
The MSM once had people who went out and found the news. Now they have people who "network". It's a form of bribery.
. Well, not the traditional bribes. If someone tried to bribe an editor or reporter they'd be thrown out of every newsroom in the United States.
But, if an editor or reporter has established "sources" who happen to be dems - backed up by the corrupt civil service workers like the ones who "checked out" Joe the Plumber - that's GOLD.
The coin of the realm: People on the inside who will talk to you. Insiders who will feed accurate information like the Pentagon papers, stats on private citizens - the stuff it would take months for a reporter to find on his own. Handed on a platter. And the price? Sometime the head of a Republican. Or an unsaid agreement not to look to closely at some things... don't want to offend "friends" and all...
The MSM's love affair with the dems is bribery - paid with the coin that matters to "journalist". FOLLOW THE MONEY.
bttt
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