THE RECKONING
White House philosophy stoked mortgage bonfire
By Jo Becker, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Stephen Labaton
December 21, 2008
WASHINGTON : "We can put light where there's darkness, and hope where there's despondency in this country. And part of it is working together as a nation to encourage folks to own their own home." — President George W. Bush, Oct. 15, 2002
The global financial system was teetering on the edge of collapse when President George W. Bush and his economics team huddled in the Roosevelt Room of the White House for a briefing that, in the words of one participant, "scared the hell out of everybody."
It was Sept. 18. Lehman Brothers had just gone belly-up, overwhelmed by toxic mortgages. Bank of America had swallowed Merrill Lynch in a hastily arranged sale. Two days earlier, Bush had agreed to pump $85 billion into the failing insurance giant American International Group.
The president listened as Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, laid out the latest terrifying news: The credit markets, gripped by panic, had frozen overnight, and banks were refusing to lend money.
Then his Treasury secretary, Henry Paulson Jr., told him that to stave off disaster, he would have to sign off on the biggest government bailout in history.
Bush, according to several people in the room, paused for a single, stunned moment to take it all in.
"How," he wondered aloud, "did we get here?"
Eight years after arriving in Washington vowing to spread the dream of homeownership, Bush is leaving office, as he himself said recently, "faced with the prospect of a global meltdown" with roots in the housing sector he so ardently championed.
There are plenty of culprits, like lenders who peddled easy credit, consumers who took on mortgages they could not afford and Wall Street chieftains who loaded up on mortgage-backed securities without regard to the risk.
But the story of how we got here is partly one of Bush's own making, according to a review of his tenure that included interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials.
[to read the rest of the article, click on the title link]
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So it is all Bush's fault.
With a sprinkling of others. Mainly Bush.
Not Barney's fault. Not the Democratic Partys fault. Not the fault of a Democratic Congress that saw no need to reign in the mortgage companies. Not their faults. It's all Bush's fault.
The NYT and its editors, understand that history is written AFTER the fact, but to stack the deck, you have to have a great deal of evidence for your side, available to weak historians who will go no further than the newspapers for proof. Historians who, have already made it clear they believe Bush to be one of the worst ... so why even bother with the fact finding. Simply pronounce him responsible and everyone will concur. That is what the NYT is hoping for.
It would be tragic if a book was written that said anything to the contrary. It would clearly be biased and lacking in objectivity. It would be a right-wing attempt to re-write history, as opposed to what the NYT has done with this article which is fair and balanced.
Take a smattering of truth, sprinkle in some quotes, fabricate, distort, and manipulate - and ta da ... a New York Times article. And you wonder why your newspapers are sinking faster than the Titanic (beside the fact many are switching to online).
It would be funny if the consequences were not so serious.
Bush
Housing
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