The Obama campaign is wrong, to say "8 years," when it's really a generation of movement Conservatism. The editor who wrote the headline is right, therefore. And the photo editor is wrong to pin it on Clinton, but right to pin it on the Village. The Clintons are the best of the Village, no question, but the orgy of looting was a Village affair was and is totally bi-partisan. The Village being the real enemy.

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

http://susiemadrak.com/2008/09/16/09/06/...

Alan Greenspan first neutered the act in 1996. Clinton signing the act was the direct result of a power play (extortion, really) in the form of the Citigroup merger. I discussed this with My Very Good Friend Paul Krugman (Lambert, you were there!) and Krugman said Clinton really didn't have much of a choice.

If we're fixing blame, it's not a bad place to start. Not only did he push some of the bills that de-regulated large sections of the financial industries, he also denied the SEC more resources during the 1990s when the SEC's workload shot up 80%. Hmmm, I wonder why the SEC workload increased during the 1990s? Oh, that's right, after 1993 it was headed by a Clinton appointee and became more active. Probably a coincidence.

You have to love the media - they cheer deregulation when it happens, cheer the witch hunt impeachment proceedings against Clinton (which weakened him significantly), then help destroy Gore giving us the current disaster, and now will blame Clinton for what the GOP has been doing since at least Reagan. But, hey, Clinton didn't stop it as much as he should've, so it's his fault. Because apparently the one Democratic President we've had in the last 28 years was supposed to prevent, undo, and stop the Republicans from doing what Republicans do.

BTW, all of this is a direct reproof to the current Democratic Congress. The Republicans got things done even with Clinton as President. They put together bills and brought pressure that made it happen. They found ways to weaken him politically and box him in. True, it was a bullshit impeachment and witch hunt, but surely the Democrats could find more honorable methods of doing the same with the worst president in history. It simply isn't true that the Congress is powerless in the face of the president. They are only powerless if they choose not to use their power. For starters, you can't run much of an executive branch without money.

I love this job!

I love this job!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/...

(see the stuff from 86 on)

I love this job!

Lambert & co are really post-partisan themselves; that's why they are so obsessed with any mention of it by Obama or any Democrat, why, for instance, the entire Democratic Platform is reduced to one sentence from the Introduction.

So understand the "village" metaphor relieves us all of any kind of detailed understanding of any particular history.

I think gob was exactly right to pick up on that McClatchy piece; a fine piece of media critique. Of course it is a major McCain talking point that this was a bi-partisan mistake, despite the role of Ronald "government isn't the answer, it's the problem" Reagan in undermining the Federal Civil Service, and although it is true that some Democrats during those years went along with legislation that deregulated, for instance, the Savings & Loan, and allowed them to expand their services, which also accelerated the merging of larger and larger banking entities, and pretty much killed, once and for all, local banking, but many fought back against the trend. I know details, details, who needs details.

BDblue, exactly right about Phil Gramm. He literally wrote the legislation, and he is still actively advising McCain, and has always been an economic guru of sorts for McCain. And surely McCain's downplaying yesterday came from fear of being called a "whiner" by Phil.

And then there is another of those ridiculous turning-on-a-dime reversals this morning, with McCain and Palin now saying that we are in deep doo-doo and that as a maverick reforming duo, fixing Wall St will be a first priority. McCain wants a commission to study it all, one that will be bound, like the 9/11 Commission not to place direct blame on anyone, or any one party.

Yesterday's message that the fundamentals of the economy are strong is gone with the wind. The shamelessness is, as ever, stunning, although we've seen it from McCain so often one shouldn't really be stunned.

As to the culpability of the current congress, it should be noted, while passing out blame, that Democrats enjoyed a one member majority, that was the margin that allowed them to take control of the congress, and only because independent Lieberman agreed to caucus with them. Honest guys, sometimes process does matter.

It is hard for me to imagine a dumber political message by which to try and develop support for liberal/progressive views regarding the relationship of markets to government, or how a just economy should function, or to restore some of the assumptions which emerged under Roosevelt's New Deal, which even Republicans shared well into the 1960s, than to insist there is no one to blame for what is happening now - it's just a result of bi-partisan government by elites, which, btw, middle America, you should get hip and start calling "the village," not "the city," which you might be tempted to think is a more appropriate metaphor, no, stick with "the village" as the all-powerful metaphor and then you can relax and start enjoying your helplessness.

Update: I forgot to include this September 5th piece by one of McCain's economic advisers, Donald the dumbster Luskin. It's quite amazing.

Remember when the papers wouldn't use the word "filibuster" when referring to the GOP even when the GOP was doing just that? (Sorry no link right now, am supposed to go into a meeting now, but should be easy to Google--there was some discussion at one point.)

and punchy.

Damn, why doesn't Obama want to be a Dem??? Why will he no create clear distinctions? What's is getting him at this point? I know he might be seen as "changing", but, hey, that's his mantra, right? Hope and change?

I do hope he will get a clue on this economy thing. But not just for campaigning--get a clue as to what's really going on and is at stake.

Not much hope of that, I fear.

...notes that the 1999 deregulation bill was the brainchild of Phil Gramm.

McClatchy photo agitprop notwithstanding, Bill Clinton signed that bill, a fact that unfortunately does not help pin political responsibility on the GOP.

I had just seen Obama give a speech in Colorado that managed to pin the tale on the elephant just fine.

It was all about it's the economy stupid, and it was powerful. And I don't even mean compared to the pap Palin has been sprouting. I think we are going to find that she is strictly a one trick pony. But her enthusiastic presentation of herself as the reformer of both Washington and Wall Street, using language to generalized as to be laughable, with no questions allowed from either the presss or the audience could not have been emptier.

Do try and catch Obama's speech - but also Palin's. I'd be interested in how our readers' compare the two.

Sorry If I sounded a bit put out.

Lambert, I value the "village" concept, but there is so much talk here about why Obama doesn't say this or that, I just thought it might be useful to point out how different it is to write a blog than to have to present one's self and one's ideas to large groups of people who don't automatically supply a prior understanding of either the language or the ideas. Bill Clinton's greatness lay precisely in his ability to talk policy to voters without ever talking down to them. Obama's skills are different, but I think he gave one hell of a political speech today. He couldn't have come out more clearly on the side of regulation, on the role of government and on the limits of markets to regulate themselves, and he fingered Republicans for not understanding the differences. And he drew the line back to Reagan. Now it's true he didn't mention Reagan personally, but he did finger the eighties. And in speeches and the more informal town halls I've seen him give recently, he regularly refers to the success of Bill Clinton's economic policiees in the nineties and I do mean by name.