In his novel “1984,” George Orwell describes the important mission of the Ministry of Truth: “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” This is the importance of propaganda; to control the populace with messaging that soothes them into compliance.
Thus, when Ed O’Keefe writes his newspeak history in the Washington Post about one of the most corrupt representatives in Congress, he composes, “(Barney) Frank will be remembered as a champion of financial regulatory reforms.”
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Let’s page through these championship performances, shall we? As the powerful chair of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank was the face of two of the biggest financial scandals in recent history. Judicial Watch, a nonpartisan government watchdog, obtained internal government documents proving Frank was well aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in deep financial trouble due to corruption and incompetence, yet Frank denied any problems existed. Documents also prove “The Champion” directed $12 million in federal bailouts to a Boston bank that was eventually shuttered by the government.
While the Post’s “champion” denies he ever lobbied for Fannie Mae to hire his lover, Herb Moses, while Frank was on the House Financial Services Committee, the New York Times’ Gretchen Morgenson reported that Frank “actually called up the company and asked them to hire” Moses. Now that’s fighting the good fight for reform, eh?
Frank vehemently promoted questionable mortgage loans from his bully pulpit, while Moses “developed many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs,” according to The Business and Media Institute. What did Frank get for all of this great regulatory reform? Thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. We got a great recession as Goldman Sachs rested on the implied promise of Fannie and Freddie backing up their trillions of dollars in failed mortgage derivatives. Maybe O’Keefe isn’t celebrating these scandals.
Maybe he and the Washington Post are celebrating Dodd-Frank, Barney’s fabulous signature regulatory reform bill. Dodd-Frank is singularly responsible for thousands of job losses and government favoritism of big banks over community banks. Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke warns Dodd-Frank regulations will cause small, community banks to believe they shouldn’t sell mortgages due to costs of complying with new regulations. American Banker reports Dodd-Frank plus the Fed’s artificially low interest rates makes the traditional business of lending not lucrative, creating a disincentive for people to save money and the need for banks to create new fees to charge consumers in order to stay in business. According to Dallas Federal Reserve Bank economist Harvey Rosenblum, the Big Banks get cheaper capital than your local neighborhood community bank because of Dodd-Frank’s implicit bailout guarantee which is not given to small banks.
Ah, the sweet smell of heroic regulatory reform!
Perhaps the Washington Post can rewrite the Boston Globe’s call for their “champion” to resign when they found out Frank was fixing parking tickets for his male prostitute lover who was also running a brothel out of his condo into something heroic, such as, “Frank should be commended for his legacy of personally supporting the right of free parking for oppressed sex workers.”
The important question is, why are Ed O’Keefe and the Washington Post engaged in newspeak, propagandizing corrupt liberal Democratic Representative Barney Frank as a reformer when he was one of those responsible for the Great Recession and causing more problems in years to come? Is the Washington Post a trustworthy independent news outlet or just another publication from the Democratic Party’s Ministry of Truth?
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© Copyright 2012 Rick Jensen, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
Rick Jensen is Delaware’s Award-Winning Conservative Talk Show Host on 1150AM WDEL and 93.7FM HD3, Streaming live on WDEL.Com from 1pm – 4pm EST. Contact Rick at rick@wdel.com, or follow him on Twitter @JensenVoiceover.
