A bit of good news for the day:

Former President Bill Clinton has left North Korea with his party, state media reported, after he negotiated for the release of two jailed American journalists.

The official Korean Central News Agency said in a brief dispatch that Clinton and others left early Wednesday by plane. The report did not specify whether the two American journalists pardoned by North Korean leader Kim Jong Il were among those who left Pyongyang on the flight.

Kim issued the “special pardon” for the reporters after Clinton made a surprise visit to the communist nation to negotiate their release Tuesday morning. The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea’s “humanitarian and peaceloving policy,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.

I doubt it was much of a surprise to the NK government – you don’t just drop in on them unexpectedly. Clearly there is some quid pro quo here, but if the payoff for NK releasing the Americans is a mere visit by Bill Clinton, then its a good job. If there’s something else involved, then it might not be such a good thing – in the larger sense; in the specific of getting these two Americans freed, its all good.

Really, Barry? Really? According to a White House pool report, posted on Drudge Report:

Subject: Pool report 5/25/09

POTUS is, reportedly, golfing with Marvin Nicholson. No actual glimpses of the presidential golf game. Aides say POTUS paused at 3 p.m. to observe a moment of silence.

The jerk won’t let Memorial Day get in the way of his golf… sounds like Bill Clinton, who passed up the chance to get Osama bin Laden so his golf game wouldn’t get interrupted.

And thus we know, in that grandest of Clinton traditions, that she was lying:

Last month Secretary of State Hilary Clinton told Congress that half of the women she had seen in Brazilian hospitals “were fighting for their lives against botched abortions.” After her comments she was asked to produce evidence as to when she had visited the hospitals or statistics to back her claim, but neither she nor her staffers have been able to produce any evidence.

Clinton, who last year falsely claimed that she had been involved in a sniper attack as First Lady when she visited Bosnia, is now making another claim: half the women in Brazilian hospitals are “fighting for their lives against botched abortions.”

After video tapes showed that Clinton was not actually under sniper fire when she was in Bosnia, she said she had a “different memory of the event.” Later she said, “So I made a mistake. That happens. It proves I’m human, which, you know, for some people, is a revelation.”

The National Catholic Register contacted Department of State spokeswoman Laura Tischler to see if there was any record of Clinton’s trip to Brazilian hospitals. Tischler said, “I am unable to confirm where or when the trip she referred to in her testimony was — where specifically in Brazil she was visiting or when the trip occurred.”

Representative Chris Smith, who asked the question that prompted Clinton’s response, remarked, “Pro-abortion activists have a long history of making these type of unsubstantiated claims. That’s how they drive policy — with gross exaggeration of numbers, hyperbole and junk science,” according to the NCR.

Not just pro-abortion people – the left has this penchant for just making up an alarming factoid to buttress whatever argument they happen to be making at the moment. People with retentive memories might recall all the post-Columbine massacre assertions that this or that number of kids were killed by guns every day in America…trouble was, all the figures bruited about exceeded the number of juveniles killed by guns per year. Its always good to pause and think about it each time a liberal makes an assertion.

Hillary’s absurd assertion about the prevalence of post-botched-abortion cases in Brazilian hospitals is one of the easier ones. I mean, honestly, how many people in Brazil are seeking an abortion at any given moment? Not enough, I’ll warrant, to fill up hospital wards, even supposing that all of them were of the botched variety. The pro-abortion loves to put out this sort of nonsense – this way they can paint the pro-life side as heartless and cruel…it is we, on our side, who want women to die…because we hate them, or something. An old – but still used – pro-abortion talking point is the absurdly inflated numbers on pre-Roe deaths from “back alley” abortions…and then, presto, Roe was decided and abortion deaths became such a small number as to never, ever need to be looked in to or studied in any way, shape or form. Apparently scores of doctors stepped forth post-Roe because they all really wanted to perform abortions all along.

Yeah, right – the people who performed the legal abortions post-Roe were the same people performing the “back alley” abortion pre-Roe. All they did was hang out a shingle – and if deaths were rare post-Roe, then they were almost certainly rare pre-Roe because, you know, “back alley” abortions weren’t done in back alleys…they were done on the sly at medical facilities were doctors would bend or break the rules about abortion. Its hard to strip away the thick and varied layers of lies the left has put out about abortion, as well as every other issue advocated by the left. It takes a while to demonstrate just one lie for what it is – and thus liberals glibly lie all the time because they know that not all the lies will be uncovered (I’m talking here, of course, about liberal leaders – the servile rank and file of liberalism doesn’t question anything and certainly doesn’t think anything through…they think they’re saying the truth because liberal leaders told them it was).

The truth, though, will out – we’re going to win this fight because we’re fighting lies designed to facilitate evil. Such things can go on for a while, but not forever…as the USSR and other bits of wickedness learned.

Andy McCarthy at NRO’s The Corner neatly turns Hillary’s comments about Vice President Cheney against her:

If the Secretary of State really doesn’t think Vice President Cheney is a reliable source, she is smart enough to know the obvious thing to do: declassify and disclose the intelligence reports he’s talking about so all the world can see exactly how unreliable he is. Here’s her big chance to put her money where her mouth is and truly embarrass the guy she so effortlessly trashed in a public hearing today.

McCarthy goes on to note that she probably won’t do it – because everyone who knows about these things is confirming Vice President Cheney. All Hillary was doing was following the Obama Administration game plan – keep running against the Bush Administration and hope that no one notices that Bush isn’t in office anymore (I didn’t say it was a smart plan – though it will be eaten up by leftists here in the United States who, also, want to keep going after President Bush).

I don’t recall from Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton or Bush II the level of condemnation of the previous Administration that we’re getting from Obama and his Administration. Certainly, each of these previous Presidents talked himself up and allude to the presumptively worse times under the other guy, but this relentless campaign of slander against people who hold no office is startling – and disturbing. The kindest face we can put on it is that Obama and Co are just floundering around and don’t know what to do so they are in default attack-mode. The more worrisome prospect is that they are attempting to demonize the Bush Administration in order to set them up for kangaroo courts preliminary to a general legal offensive against all right-of-center opinion.

When Bill Clinton left office, forgiveness from me was almost as automatic as breathing. I was glad to see him go, but I felt no continuing rancor towards him – even after the accounting scandal and 9/11 exposed the miserable incompetence of his Administration. There was no point in indulging in hatred or attempting to witch-hunt him or his subordinates. It was over – whatever he did, for good or ill, was in the history books and all we could do is the best we could with what we had day by day. To attempt to rehash the past helps no one (this is why I was opposed to the 9/11 Commission – I just wasn’t interested in a post-mortem except as much as we could learn from mistakes). Love Bush or hate Bush, there is nothing he can do – all he can do has been done. One might like or hate the results, but liked or hated, the results have to be dealt with as they are…putting him in the dock won’t change our predicament. In fact, it would make it worse as it would drive massive wedges of disunity into the American body politic.

You people on the left really need to let go – and get Obama and Co to let go, too. Your long, national nightmare (if that is how you choose to view it) is over. You can breath again. So, lay off. Unless, that is, you’re just consumed with hatred…then what you need is the grace and mercy of God.

They are either stupid, or just so deep in hubris that they don’t realize how bad this sort of thing will be for them – from NRO’s The Corner:

Hillary said this week that the administration might extend Temporary Protected Status to Haitian illegal aliens, an estimated 30,000 of whom are somewhere in the deportation pipeline (and many more haven’t been identified at all). Despite the claim of temporary-ness, this would be, like all past grants of such status, for all practical purposes, permanent. I’m sure with Florida’s unemployment rate at almost 10 percent, that’ll go over really well.

I’m one of the 5.7 people who backed the Bush-McCain immigration reform effort. I want a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegals who are long-term residents of the United States. But I wouldn’t touch anything which can even be remotely cast as amnesty with a 10 foot pole right now. I’ll start pushing for a guest-worker program a couple years after we’ve secured the borders, because that is what the American people – by an overwhelming majority – wants. With Obama set to revive some sort of Bush-McCain immigration reform and now Hillary holding out the prospect of amnesty for Haitian illegals, the Democrats are walking down a path which will allow the GOP to paint them – justifiably – as unserious about American national and economic security.

Have at it Dems – and hey, while you’re at it, revive the “assault weapons” ban, ok?

Obama said he would unite this country. Well, he isn’t, according to Pew Researh Center. In fact, Obama has the widest partisan gap in his approval ratings of any president in the modern era.

For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades. The 61-point partisan gap in opinions about Obama’s job performance is the result of a combination of high Democratic ratings for the president — 88% job approval among Democrats — and relatively low approval ratings among Republicans (27%).

By comparison, there was a somewhat smaller 51-point partisan gap in views of George W. Bush’s job performance in April 2001, a few months into his first term. At that time, Republican enthusiasm for Bush was comparable to how Democrats feel about Obama today, but there was substantially less criticism from members of the opposition party. Among Democrats, 36% approved of Bush’s job performance in April 2001; that compares with a 27% job approval rating for Obama among Republicans today.

The partisan gap in Bill Clinton’s early days was also substantially smaller than what Obama faces, largely because Democrats were less enthusiastic about Clinton. In early April 1993, 71% of Democrats approved of Clinton’s job performance, which is 17 points lower than Obama’s current job approval among Democrats. Republican ratings of Clinton at that point (26%) are comparable to their current ratings of Obama today (27%). 

I am sure the left will blame Republicans for not drinking the Obama Kool-Aid, but Obama is the one who has no record of genuine bipartisanship, and so far, he has done nothing substantive to reach out to Republicans. In fact he is using fear to push through a terrible budget and is already expanding to role of government in scary socialism-like ways.

While the partisan divide is part of a long term trend, Obama was the one claiming he’d be the one to end all that and bring this country together. Of course, he spent the whole of his campaign being as partisan as anyone could be, so this really doesn’t shock me at all.

None of them:

Speaking at Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s national conference in Houston this past Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced that promoting “reproductive rights” –including abortion- will be at the top of the government’s international agenda.

After being honored by Planned Parenthood with the Margaret Sanger award for her “work on behalf of women’s health and reproductive rights,” the Secretary of State said “I have to tell you that it was a great privilege when I was told that I would receive this award. I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision.”

Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was openly sympathetic with to Nazi Germany’s eugenic practices and was strongly committed to preventing blacks, Hispanics and poor people from reproducing.

I guess we can’t really blame Hillary too much here – she doesn’t seem to have much knowledge of anything that happened prior to, oh, last week or so…I mean, she didn’t know who painted the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe, so its no surprise that she didn’t know that Sanger was a racist eugenicist who founded Planned Parenthood with the specific purpose of aborting black babies and other “inferiors” in mind. Heck, I doubt that even one in hundred random feminists has a clear idea of what Planned Parenthood is really about…they just get told its about “choice” and “reproductive rights”, and that sounds so nifty peachy keen…just don’t turn that rock over and notice that black babies are far more likely to be aborted than white babies and, of course, such things as PP being used as means for child rapists to dispose of the strongest evidence against them.

There is an incredible creepiness about the pro-abortion movement…such a complete disconnect from reality. There is no way to meet such people – I mean, I could tell Hillary till I’m blue in the face that her award is named after a frightful racist and it just wouldn’t register. Only God can change such hearts – all we can do is try to thwart their plans.

Next time, Hill old gal, lets not skimp on the preliminary briefing:

During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers “on behalf of the American people,” after asking who painted the famous image.

A hundred points for leaving the flowers, minus a thousand, however, for not knowing that we Catholics believe that God painted the image – its all part of the miracle of Mexico’s conversion. Details can be read here.

A small error, to be sure, but one in a series of foreign policy mis-steps by the gang which was supposed to be oh, so much better than President Bush.

UPDATE: And then Hillary leaves the shrine of the Protectress of the Unborn…to go get the Margaret Sanger “Kill-A-Baby-A-DAY” Award.

So much for transparency:

One government official said State and the White House have been discussing reducing the amount of information the State Department releases about the secretary’s words and meetings, which by long tradition is more expansive than what’s released by some other agencies.

Reporters who deal with the State Department wouldn’t voice their complaints on the record. Those who spoke on background said they had enjoyed what they saw as excellent access to Clinton during a previous trip to Asia.

But the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler let some of the dissatisfaction show on his blog during the trip to Europe and the Middle East.

He reported from Sharm el-Sheikh that Clinton was the first secretary of state in seven years not to brief reporters at the beginning of a trip. “We got off the plane, wordless. This was a big deal for the press corps,” he wrote.

Of course, this could just be Obama’s way of keeping Hillary out of the spotlight…but, more likely, its a means of tightly controlling information on the slow-motion foreign policy disaster which will be Obama Administration foreign policy. After all, if you’re set to buddy up to terrorists and do all manner of things to debase America in the world, its best if the unwashed masses don’t get wind of it…

So much smarter than those dumb Republicans:

Gupta: Let’s talk about something you talked a lot about in the early part of your presidency, stem cells. There was an order today providing federal money for embryonic stem cell research. First of all, let me just ask you, as someone who studied this, is this going to always be as divisive an issue as it is now? Is this going to be the abortion of the next generation? Or are people going to come around?

Clinton: I think – the answer is I think that we’ll work it through. If – particularly if it’s done right. If it’s obvious that we’re not taking embryos that can – that under any conceivable scenario would be used for a process that would allow them to be fertilized and become little babies, and I think if it’s obvious that we’re not talking about some science fiction cloning of human beings, then I think the American people will support this….

Gupta: Any reservations?

Clinton: I don’t know that I have any reservations, but I was – he has apparently decided to leave to the relevant professional committees the definition of which frozen embryos are basically going to be discarded, because they’re not going to be fertilized. I believe the American people believe it’s a pro-life decision to use an embryo that’s frozen and never going to be fertilized for embryonic stem cell research….(emphasis added)

Imagine what a field day the left would have if George Bush or any other GOPer had made statements this ignorant – Bill Clinton clearly hasn’t the foggiest notion of what an embryo is; a 7th grade bit of science which he seems to have missed out on. And yet he’s the smart guy.

Yeah, right – perhaps we should have sent a different broad:

Russian media has been poking fun at US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after she gave her Russian counterpart a “reset” button with an ironic misspelling.

Clinton’s gift to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at their meeting in Geneva on Friday evening was meant to underscore the Obama administration’s readiness to “to press the reset button” in ties with Moscow.

But instead of the Russian word for “reset” (perezagruzka) it featured a slightly different word meaning “overload” or “overcharged” (peregruzka).

Daily newspaper Kommersant put a prominent picture of the fake red button on its front page and declared: “Sergei Lavrov and Hillary Clinton pushed the wrong button.”

Do keep in mind that I consider Hillary one of the few adults in the Obama Administration – but being as she is a liberal Democrat and the SecState of the first socialist President of the United States of America, its a natural that sheer idiocy will become national policy. Only in the paranoid, raving mind of the kook left was there any need for a “reset” of US/Russia relations – we have our problems, but to consider the last 8 years a complete disaster, as the kook left does, is to ignore the fact that, by and large, President Bush had treated Russia as necessary and was rapidly building up the collective security net around Russia necessary to curb Russia’s imperialist ambitions.

In comes Hillary with words of wisdom from her boss, and it all goes up in a puff of laughter as a stupid conception of foreign relations meets a stupid symbolic gesture, which was then done all wrong.

Its going to be a long four years, boys and girls.

The MSM headline when Bush mangled his words:

Bush stumbles while asserting progress in education

The MSM headline when Hillary mangled her words:

Tongue-tied Clinton gets warm EU welcome

Now, what did Bush say?

“As yesterday’s positive report card shows,” Bush said, “childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured.”

And what did Hillary say?

Hillary Clinton raised eyebrows on her first visit to Europe as secretary of state when she mispronounced her EU counterparts’ names and claimed U.S. democracy was older than Europe’s…

…”I have never understood multiparty democracy.

“It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy.”

Bush “stumbles” because, you see, he’s a hick moron…Hillary is “tongue-tied” because she’s a genius liberal…

Meanwhile, all Bush did was accidentally put an “s” at the end of “children”, while Hillary showed massive ignorance of basic facts.

Seems all that illegal Chinese money did what it was intended – got Hillary to be a willing stooge of her ChiCom paymasters:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged China to keep investing its substantial foreign-exchange reserves in U.S. Treasury securities, arguing “we are truly going to rise or fall together.”

China is the biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt, which helped finance the spending binge the United States went on before the current economic crisis. Some experts have expressed concern that China’s substantial holding of U.S. debt gives it increased leverage in dealings with Washington because any halt in Chinese purchases would make it more difficult to finance the government bailout and stimulus packages.

I like that MSM bias, too – we went on a “spending binge” under President Bush, but what we’re doing under Obama is “stimulus package”. Someone got a way to differentiate between “binge” and “package”? Ah, well…

Anyways: it was announced earlier that Hillary had taken China’s horrific human rights record off the table…so, we’re officially unconcerned with forced abortions, torture, slave labor…but we don’t want the Chinese to buy our bonds, lest we be forced to print money to pay for Obama’s asinine economic policies. And when China decides to, say, move on Taiwan, just what will Hillary do? Get tough with the people who have the receipts for her illegal campaign contributions? Demand the largest holder of US debt back off?

Its going to be a loooong four years.

The Washington Times notes that the FEC complaint i filed against Hillary Clinton last year was finally taken up.

It was just over a year ago that conservative blogger Matt Margolis filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission surrounding questionable fundraising practices by then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The complaint dealt with a $380,000 “cooks and dishwashers” fundraiser in New York, which sought campaign contributions ranging from $1,000 to $2,500. As Mr. Margolis pointed out, there was at least one donor who admitted to being an illegal immigrant, while another claimed she was illegally reimbursed for her contribution.

This week, the FEC took up the complaint – purporting “contributions were made in the name of another and contributions were made by foreign nationals” – and has now just ruled that it “found no reason to believe” Mrs. Clinton violated FEC regulations and “closed the file.”

It is worth noting that a significant part of the reason the case was “closed” was not so much because no wrongdoing was found, but because the complaint was based on news accounts, not “personal knowledge.” Some questionable donations were in fact returned.

Read it and weep, liberals:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was a strong second among the most-admired women, behind Hillary Clinton but ahead of television host Oprah Winfrey, when the USA Today/Gallup poll was conducted Dec. 12-14.

You can say she’s hated, but its really just you wallowing in your own bitterness. She’s a popular woman and has a great political career in front of her, if she decides to take it – after all, she’s not like a liberal who must have office or feel reduced as a human being. She can stay in Alaska and be a grandma and have a wonderful life with no regrets – or she can come roaring out of that State in to 2012/2016 and wallop you liberals but good. Her choice – and either one is all good, as far as I’m concerned.

So says governor Patterson:

Gov. Patterson put up a caution flag Wednesday to those ready to anoint Caroline Kennedy New York’s next U.S. senator.

“How is she a front-runner?” Paterson shot back when a reporter used the term referring to Kennedy.

Paterson, just back from his troop visit to Iraq, Afghanistan and Germany, did not rule Kennedy out of course.

Still, he made it clear he is growing tired of the constant speculation about JFK’s daughter. Paterson has the sole decision on who will replace Hillary Clinton, who is leaving to become secretary of state.

He said the process is “sounding more like the prelude to a high school prom than the choosing of the United States senator.”

Paterson has repeatedly said he won’t choose anyone until after Clinton is confirmed.

Which is reasonable – the chances of Hillary not being confirmed are small, but until the deal is done, she’s still a Senator and thus the governor is being entirely right and proper in reserving judgment.

As for me, I’m wondering which power players in the Democratic party are pushing Ms. Kennedy – after all, she’s a complete political zero. I’m sure she’s a nice person, but there is no indication that she’s some sort of secret political genius just waiting in the wings for the right moment. Other than the Kennedy family trying to burnish their rapidly fading political star, I can’t see why anyone would want Ms. Kennedy in the Senate unless she happened to run for it and win in her own right.

And the really sad thing is that while she helps kill babies – including disproportionate numbers of female babies – she’ll think she’s advancing human rights:

President-elect Barack Obama’s selection of Sen. Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State has caused concern among pro-life leaders due to her past international advocacy for permissive abortion laws. Her appointment could foreshadow changes in U.S. policy at the U.N. concerning the rights of the unborn.

According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), Critics claim that Sen. Clinton, who was First Lady during her husband Bill Clinton’s presidency, had a major voice in the U.N. social policy of the Clinton administration. Her influence, encompassing several major U.N. conferences, included her participation at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.

There, Sen. Clinton coined the phrase “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.” The slogan became a rallying cry for a right to abortion.

Sen. Clinton’s work with former U.S. Sen. Tim Wirth, the Undersecretary for Global Affairs in the Clinton State Department, sought to broaden access to abortion.

It does still flabbergast – the knowledge that some people think that death is a rational answer to a pregnancy. I mean, think about it – Hillary Clinton (and Barack Obama, for that matter) are decent people; wouldn’t harm a fly, either of them. But in service of leftwing political goals they likely only dimly understand, they’ll push hard – in the aggregate – for abortion around the globe. Birth rates are falling around the world, there is a huge imbalance between men and women in China and India due to sex-selection abortion, Europe’s population is dying out…and still we kill our unborn children.

This is the sad result of the GOP not getting solidly behind John McCain – sure, he wasn’t the perfect candidate, but he wouldn’t advance the culture of death as Obama will. Elections do have consequences, and one of the consequences of this election is that the United States will assist in procuring abortions.

If by “change” you mean “keep things almost exactly as they are now“:

After eight years as senator from New York, Hillary Clinton is trading places, moving from Congress to the incoming administration.

On Monday, President-elect Barack Obama announced that he asked his former rival to be his secretary of state.

That means the scramble begins to replace Clinton on Capitol Hill. Among those mentioned to take her seat as New York’s junior senator is her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

This appointment is only for two years – then a special election in 2010 to fill the remainder of Hillary’s term through 2012. The real worry: Chelsea Clinton will turn 30 on February 27, 2010…and then be old enough to be a Senator. We could have endless Clintons here…the long, national nightmare might never end!

That is the word.

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, it would seem.

This is the part of politics most people shouldn’t have to see – Obama wants Hillary neutralized, at least for the first couple years, and by putting her in the Cabinet, he gets that. Hillary, meanwhile, has a lot of debts to pay off and the only want to get the money is via Bill’s “speaking fees”, and he will now have influence to peddle with this “foundation”. Actually, I’m going to hand it to Obama on this one – rather clever, if cynical, political ploy.

The larger worry I’m developing is that Obama appears unwilling to make a decision which risks Obama’s political prospects. In the advancement and defense of Obama, Obama is quick and decisive…on everything else he floats around like a feather blown on the wind. The various parts of the Obama Administration may fly very much out of control – someone has to make hard and fast decisions, and if Obama won’t, other’s will – to the detriment of national policy. Honestly, its better to have a series of wrong decisions made than a series of correct half-decisions.

Obama has a steep learning curve, and for the sake of the United States and the world I hope he realizes (a) how little he knows and (b) is determined to master his job.

Here’s a 10 minute video that is worth every second to watch:

UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Senator Bunning injects a note of reality into the debate:

I also strongly disagree with the Senators who have come to the floor and declared that this crisis is a failure of the free markets. No, the root of this crisis is a failure of government. It comes from a failure of regulation and, most importantly, monetary policy. In the long term we certainly need to update our financial regulation to reflect the realities of our modern economy, but it is just plain wrong to blame failures of our regulations and regulators on the markets…

…I want to mention a few more failures of government that directly contributed to this mess. Federal regulations require the use of ratings from rating agencies that have proven to be wrong on the biggest financial failures of the last decade. The Community Reinvestment Act forces banks to make loans they would not otherwise make based on the credit history of the borrower. The Securities and Exchange Commission under former Chairman Donaldson failed to establish meaningful oversight and leverage restrictions for investment banks.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used the implied backing of the government to grow so large that their takeover by the government effectively doubled the national debt. And they were pushed by their executives and the Clinton Administration to loosen their lending standards and write the loans that drove the companies to the point of being bailed out by the taxpayers.

Finally, the same individuals who have come to this building to ask for the latest bailout set the stage for the very panic they are using to justify the bailout.