Crooks and Liars: A Liberal blog's explaination of itself.

Edmund Burke once said, "The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion." This seems to be the same delusion the folks at Crooks and Liars, a notable Progressive blog, seem to be caught up in. And one they want for the rest of us.

In one post they have covered every Progressive/Liberal/Democratic meme there is to cover. Pathetically trying to shift the fault for the stock market tanking from Obama to the Republicans with some equally sad evidence to back it up.

Meme 1-Blame the Republicans (More specifically, Limbaugh.)

Crooks and Liars-"The right's second-favorite new talking point -- right behind "Leave Rush Aloooooone!" -- is the claim that the ongoing downward spiral of the stock market is now President Obama's fault.

It's utter nonsense, of course. Indeed, a far more plausible explanation for the continuing lousy psychology of the stock market is that all the hysterical fearmongering, marked by absurd charges that we're descending into "socialism," coming from the mouths of Republicans and various right-wing talkers (most prominently Limbaugh) has created a blanket of groundless fear and suspicion around Obama's recovery program that is keeping the market in freefall."

This has got to be the weakest correlation of assumptions I have read so far. First, aren't we in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? That's what people keep hearing, how do you expect them to react? This has nothing to with the "socialist" meme which has been around for quite sometime. Funny though, since the Progressives have started equating today's current situation to the Great Depression things have gotten dramatically worse.

We did three posts in early February covering this problem at length. Take your pick.

• The Stimulus Package: Fear Mongering and Crisis Propagation, the Liberal Way


• Reverend Obama: The Economic Apocalypse is Now!


• Bad policy and the politics of fear: The New New Deal

Secondly, if Limbaugh, or talk radio, is the problem then why is the White House trying to empower him? Are they this shortsighted? Maybe the WH is so reckless they don't care about the consequences of their actions.

Plus, Limbaugh reaches about 14 million people a week, how many do you think the President reaches? I guess Crooks and Liars lives under the assumption that Limbaugh has more political capital than our President. Maybe Obama should have the talk show and Rush should be in the White House.

Meme 2-Bush Derangement Syndrome (Thank you, Charles Krauthammer for this one.)

They go on to quote Robert Reich's recent post in Salon as proof that all of this was Bush's fault. Try again.

From our archives and in summary,

Politics and Critical Thinking-Summarizing this information, Clinton seeks to strengthen opportunity for home ownership in the States and amends the CRA, a few years later Phil Gramm seeks to overturn a Depression era piece of legislation, he cannot because of the Clinton administration concerns about lending practices concerning poorer people in the community. Gramm makes the compromise to get the Financial Services Modernization Act passed. You have coupled the farthest reaching free market thinking with a massive liberal community giveaway program. The regulations forced on these institutions, along with their greed, gave rise to the Sub Prime Bubble. Then a few years later, you have a Republican Congress and President who forgot they were Conservatives, passing liberalized legislation under the guise of free market thinking and I give you the Sub Prime Mortgage Crisis.

It is well established, contrary to media and progressive hype, that Bush was not the lone architect of the Housing Bubble bursting, but what about his solutions? TARP I and the former President's original stimulus have accomplished nothing they were supposed too. Then why is President Obama trying to follow in his Bush's failed footsteps with an even more expensive and potentially harmful debacle?

Meme 3-Mass deregulation, tax cuts, and complete "free markets."

Crooks and Liars-What Republicans can't really handle, of course, is confronting the reality that it was their misbegotten approach to the economy -- mass deregulation, complete "free markets," and tax cuts tax cuts tax cuts -- that was responsible for creating this mess.

What Progressives can't handle is they really know very little about economics 101. Listening to them though, you would think every single one of them has a PHD in macroeconomics.

Onto confronting reality,

Deregulation- From Heritage, Red Tape Rising: Regulatory Trends in the Bush Years.

Heritage Foundation-Despite the claims of critics—and some supporters—of the Bush Administration, net regulatory burdens have increased in the years since George W. Bush assumed the presidency. Since 2001, the federal government has imposed almost $30 billion in new regulatory costs on Americans.

Tax cuts-If tax cuts are wrong then why is President Obama dedicating almost 42% of his "stimulus package" to this concept. Why aren't Crooks and Liars crying foul on that one?

John F. Kennedy, the former Liberal superman, enacted one of the largest tax cutting policies in recent times. Here is an interesting comparison between Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush from the Tax Foundation. I guess we found the culprit for our current mess, JFK.

Now tax cuts are not the end-all-be-all for economic growth either. To be effective they must be specifically targeted and accompanied by well placed spending reductions by the government. Although this situation remains the elusive pipe dream we all seem to be chasing.

Completely "Free Markets"-What C&L is referring to is "Laissez-faire capitalism" (French, "leave to do (by itself)") or an unfettered economy, free of government regulation.

As pointed out in Wiki, we have not really had an almost completely free market since the 1820's.

Wikipedia-Although the period before the American Civil War was notable for the limited extent of the federal government, the Austrian School suggest that there was a considerable degree of government intervention in the economy—particularly after the 1820s.

I am not sure where they get the idea that rampant "free markets" caused any of this. How could a philosophy that doesn't exist contribute to a problem that does?


I understand the contributors at Crooks and Liars are writing for their readership, I don't begrudge them that privilege. But, if you want to attract the American people to the idea of Progressiveness, don't be disingenuous with the information. Somebody may call you on it with facts.

Update: Just saw this on the news ticker after I posted this article. How apropo and ironic.

AP-Obama: Time of crisis can be 'great opportunity'