by Dirk McQuigley
Fri Oct 03, 2008 at 07:22:17 AM PDT
The Traditional Media ignored a blatant gaffe by Sarah Palin during last evening's vice presidential debate. Palin had a Gerald Ford moment when she blamed the recent economic woes of Wall Street on Main Street. Former President Ford was ridiculed by the press during a debate with opponent Jimmy Carter for insisting "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford Administration."
Ford's gaffe was a crucial error in 1976 and may have been enough of a factor in that election which was close. It remains to be seen how critical Palin's gaffe will be — or even if it is called a gaffe by the TradMed which may chose to either ignore the remark or merely categorize it as a "slip of the tongue."
Dirk McQuigley's diary :: ::
I was out late last night and was not able to get home in time to watch the first hour of the debate. However, my wife and I were both listening to it on the radio in our car and were incredulous when Palin responsed to a question about the economy.
This is the full transcript of that specific question, taken from CNN:
I
FILL: Next question, Gov. Palin, still on the economy. Last year, Congress passed a bill that would make it more difficult for debt-strapped mortgage-holders to declare bankruptcy, to get out from under that debt. This is something that John McCain supported. Would you have?
PALIN: Yes, I would have. But here, again, there have -- there have been so many changes in the conditions of our economy in just even these past weeks that there has been more and more revelation made aware now to Americans about the corruption and the greed on Wall Street.
We need to look back, even two years ago, and we need to be appreciative of John McCain's call for reform with Fannie Mae, with Freddie Mac, with the mortgage-lenders, too, who were starting to really kind of rear that head of abuse.
And the colleagues in the Senate weren't going to go there with him. So we have John McCain to thank for at least warning people. And we also have John McCain to thank for bringing in a bipartisan effort people to the table so that we can start putting politics aside, even putting a campaign aside, and just do what's right to fix this economic problem that we are in.
It is a crisis. It's a toxic mess, really, on Main Street that's affecting Wall Street (Bold emphasis mine). And now we have to be ever vigilant and also making sure that credit markets don't seize up. That's where the Main Streeters like me, that's where we would really feel the effects.
Back in 1976, incumbent Ford was running on his foreign policy experience against an untested governor. This is how Time described the gaffe:
For any politician, calling Eastern Europe free would be an amazing gaffe. For a President, especially one who is running partly on a campaign theme of experience in foreign policy, the mistake reawakened many voters' suspicions that Ford is a bumbier.
Is it a reasonable question to ask Palin if she believes that the toxic mess on Main Street caused the woes of Wall Street? There is some evidence, particularly among wing nut talking points that this is exactly what they believe and was not a misstatement.
Republicans have been blaming the sub prime meltdown on the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act. A quick Google search found 38.000 hits on "CRA responsible for Wall Street woes."
This is what douchebag Jonah Goldberg had to say about the CRA in National Review Online:
...The Clinton administration reinterpreted the Jimmy Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act to politicize lending practices. Under the CRA, the government forced banks to prove they weren’t “redlining” — i.e., discriminating against minorities — by approving loans to minorities and various left-wing “community group” shakedown artists whether they were bad risks or not.
...The current financial crisis stems in large part from the fact that people who shouldn’t have been buying a home, or who bought more home than they could afford, now can’t pay their bills. Their bad mortgages are mixed up with the good mortgages. And thanks in part to new accounting rules set up after Enron, the bad mortgages have contaminated the whole pile, reducing the value of even stable mortgages.
Yet it has been pointed out that at most only about 20 percent of all mortgages issued by banks are of the sub prime variety and not all of those loans went to minority borrowers. Moreover, 40 percent of all mortgages issued by mortgage companies WERE sub prime and mortgage companies are not regulated by the CRA. Besides, this is not a Jimmy Stuart movie and most homeowners don't get their mortgages from banks anymore. I didn't because the rates when I purchased my home in the summer of 2003 were substantially better from mortgage firms than they were from any banks.
The Goldberg circular reasoning is beyond absurd. If the CRA is to blame, then the crisis should have happened either in the late 1970's or early 80's. But hey, the Rethugs have to blame someone and minorities are both a favored and convenient scapegoat for the party which chants the mantra of personal responsibility for personal bankrupcy, unplanned pregnancies and the like but develops amnesia when it comes to the questionable business practices of greedy Wall Street financiers.
The Palin comment may have been a Freudian slip. It may have been a gaffe. However, given this knee jerk reaction to blame the minorities for the problem is a very common Republican talking point right now, IMO the Palin statement was indicative of how Palin actually feels about the market meltdown. And that says a lot about the economic polices of a McPalin Administration and the total absence of empathy for Americans suddenly homeless because of foreclosure. This blame the victim strategy of Palin is the same forcing rape victims to pay for the evidence kits because it was their fault.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/3/93612/7581/550/618805
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