Nice to see in print:
So proposed reform legislation gives regulators “resolution authority,” which basically means giving them the ability to deal with the likes of Lehman in much the same way that the F.D.I.C. deals with conventional banks. Who could object to that?
Well, Mr. McConnell is trying. His talking points come straight out of a memo Frank Luntz, the Republican political consultant, circulated in January on how to oppose financial reform. “Frankly,” wrote Mr. Luntz, “the single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout.” And Mr. McConnell is following those stage directions.
It’s a truly shameless performance: Mr. McConnell is pretending to stand up for taxpayers against Wall Street while in fact doing just the opposite. In recent weeks, he and other Republican leaders have held meetings with Wall Street executives and lobbyists, in which the G.O.P. and the financial industry have sought to coordinate their political strategy.
And let me assure you, Wall Street isn’t lobbying to prevent future bank bailouts. If anything, it’s trying to ensure that there will be more bailouts. By depriving regulators of the tools they need to seize failing financial firms, financial lobbyists increase the chances that when the next crisis strikes, taxpayers will end up paying a ransom to stockholders and executives as the price of avoiding collapse.
I said basically the same exact thing yesterday.
EconWatcher
I’ll repeat my comment from a dead thread: McConnell will not get away with this one. The public just isn’t going to buy that the Republicans are standing up to Wall Street, while the Dems are coddling big business.
That’s too hard a sell, especially with McConnell making the kind of mistakes he has, openly cavorting with banksters. Yes, the “Big Lie” sometimes works, especially on complex issues. But only when it fits the public’s preconceptions of what the two parties are about. This one doesn’t.
Plus, Corker called McConnell on it. To pull off the big lie, McConnell would at least have to have his whole team on board. He doesn’t.
And by the way, Mitch McConnell is living proof of Coco Chanel’s adage that after 50, we all get the face we deserve. When Dorian Gray looked in the mirror, he saw Mitch McConnell.
Quackosaur
That was my favorite part. Any day that Bobo doesn’t have column space is a good day to me.
SiubhanDuinne
David Brooks is a little bit off nearly every day.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
Wow, as much as I despise McConnell, and that is a lot, I think that this is one shitty line.
For the most part, people don’t have a lot of control over what their faces are going to do in the years between 50 and 70, so I take this comment as being both immature, and gratuitously cruel.
I can assure you that most people who reach the ages of 60 and then 70 are mostly happy just to be alive when they wake up in the morning. As well they should be, and as you will be if you are not already.
Coco Chanel is a person who really should have just fucked herself, and probably did. Nobody gets “what they deserve” when they get older. They mostly get what their genes planned for them before they were born. Things might be different in someone else’s family, but in mine, the understanding was that, unfortunately, you could not choose your parents.
PTirebiter
I read something the other day on why the big lie works. The basic idea was, that since everyone tells little lies, most of us are pretty good at recognizing them. It may be common knowledge but it was new to me. It still astounds me.
Violet
I don’t think the public is going to buy McConnell’s BS.
Mike in NC
Shocked — SHOCKED — I tell you, to think that Wall Street pulls the strings on the GOP puppet!
ed
From your virtual mouth to some good-hearted supernatural Sky Fairy or similar god-like being’s hearing organ.
guhm61
OT but in speaking of the impact of a Big Lie but relative to Health Care Reform:.
The hospital system says they’ll provide care to anyone regardless of their ability to pay without mentioning that the patient will still get a backbreaking bill; the freaking insurance plan flack suggests that the patient apply for disability thus, of course, “socializing” the cost of his care; and the patient wishes he had the benefit of the Health Care Reform with regard to pre-existing conditions but he’s not in favor of healthcare reform.
And the same process is evolving with this attempt at finance reform.
Comrade javafascist
Prediction: In a couple days we will be posting comments to a blog post railing against (insert news organization of choice here) that reported the financial regulation legislation as “Dems say this bill will prevent bailouts. Republicans claim it will just lead to more.” The End. There will be no fact checking, no attempt to reveal the truth and no mention of McConnell and the banksters or GOP talking points memos.
mellowjohn
comrade javafascist…
your “quote” is almost word-for-word from the Nice Polite Republicans on morning edition this a.m.
Stroszek
@Comrade javafascist: This is exactly right. Reuters already published the template for this article on Wednesday. Ezra’s interview with Corker provides the template for the “I won’t press him for details but he sounds serious” truthiness that will be used to make “regulation = infinite bailouts” into a “valid” viewpoint.
EconWatcher
Washington Post has exactly the kind of article that Comrade Javafascist predicts this morning:
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/15/AR2010041505859.html
But I’m sticking with my story: I don’t think McConnell can get away with this one. He has banksters’ lipstick all over his collar. People will see that.
Comrade javafascist
You cannot be cynical enough when it comes to the current crop of journalists.
I got into a small spat with Jake Tapper on Twitter earlier this week because he posted fact checks of his Sunday guests with a “(Sorry Sen Schumer)” and “(Sorry Sen Kyl)” in the tweets. I told him even if it was in jest it made him look deferential. In return, he called me a Caped Crusader who couldn’t appreciate sarcasm. Memo to Jake: your profession has a lot to answer for before sarcastic comments about fact checking will be funny. Exhibit A: see above.
Jay
Even given the disgraceful standards of today’s “MSM”, I think the Republicans are going to find it hard to fight any FIR bills in the Congress (still less the media) and not end up 1) losing; 2) looking like chumps in the process; and 3) giving President Obama and/or the Democrats valuable ammo for the elections. Especially if they play their cards right and get Big Barry to lay it out in plain language in one of his Saturday addresses – and make it a “truth v. lie” issue.
The political media, GOP fellators as they reflexively revert to, won’t (I don’t think) have much of an opportunity to spin Wall-Street-Reform the way they did Healthcare; the lines are too easily drawn, the public sentiments too plain. Outside of the now-standard squawks about “Soshulism” – which probably won’t have much resonance beyond the Teabagger crowd – the Repubs, it looks like, are unnecessarily painting themselves into a corner. And obviously (almost obliviously) so.
Chad N Freude
@Comrade javafascist: I don’t want to get into an argument about Tapper’s Tweets(tm), but I think “Sorry Sen Republican-Liar” clearly reads as sarcasm (“SOR-ry”). You appear to have read it as “I’m sorry to be the bearer of this bad news.” Tapper’s Caped Crusader response is just offensive; apparently JT is thin-skinned.
Having said that, I was totally impressed by your clairvoyance (really, no sarcasm there), although you seem to have underestimated the number of days it would take.
Linda Featheringill
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty: So you are saying that I am turning into an ugly old hag because of my ancestors and it is not my fault? Cool.
Comrade javafascist
@Chad N Freude: I saw the sarcasm but did not think it nearly as clear as you did (which is fine. I realize I care about this more than most and that suppresses my humor gene.) My first line in response to him was “Your apologies to Sens may be in jest but give impression of deference to authority.” I’ll stand by that. Journalism has been awful for 8 (16?)+ years more concerned with access, horse races and tire swings than informing the public (or indeed, as Jake demonstrates, caring much what the public thinks about their work. (And to be fair, I think Jake is far better than most and he amuses me regularly on twitter.)) Their first attempt to correct this general awfulness should probably avoid the sarcasm, in my opinion. Gain the public trust again. Then we can joke.
bemused
@Quackosaur: @SiubhanDuinne:
My thoughts exactly when I saw that.
Chad N Freude
@Comrade javafascist: The link between “journalism” and reporting, informing, and analyzing has become very weak. I no longer watch any TV news other than Maddow and occasionally PBS. The newspapers are awful, although there are pockets of competence in the NY Times, and the LA Times has maintained a pretty high standard, in spite of Sam Zell’s attempts to rip its reportorial heart out. Local NPR stations KPCC and, to a lesser extent KCRW, do very good news analysis (the NPR network not so much anymore. I don’t think that we ought to ban sarcasm until the public trust is regained — think John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. (I know, they don’t do journalism, except they do.) Re the public trust: a significant part of the public trusts Fox News. And a lot of people apparently trust CNN, CBS, ABC, and NBC, accepting what they hear as “news”.
SIA
Fix’t
ETA: BTW I hope you are right, and I love the Coco quote.
Perry Como
SEC has charged Goldman with fraud. Jump, fuckers.
Huggy Bear
In the face of the blatant dishonesty of the Repubes and the laziness of the media, how does the filibuster threat get neutralized?
I say, for any piece of legislation the Dems want to pass, just put the word g@y in the appropriate place.
For example, call financial reform the “Preventing Banks from Getting too G@y to Fail Act” and you’ll get the whole south, plus all the Dems.
bob h
Goldman Sachs was indicted this morning for fraud by the SEC, and their dirty laundry is going to be in the news for some time. Does McConnell really want to risk defending these indefensible assholes?
Liz
I heard an interview on NPR this morning. Chrystia Vreeland was saying this is a fantastic fight for the Democrats, because they Republicans are truly in a no win situation if they choose to pursue the current path of “NO.”
ksmiami
I HATE FRIGGIN GOLDMAN. HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, by all means Mitch, knock yourself out defending them you cheap whore
jrosen
Quackosaur, David Brooks is always off.
jrosen
@ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
According to some quick googling, the quote “After 40 every man is responsible for his own face” is ascribed not to Coco Chanel but to Abraham Lincoln, and something rather like it also to Albert Camus.
What I take it to mean is that after half a life-time, the kinds of thoughts and feelings that you tend to harbor habitually begin to have an effect on your actual physical appearance. Certainly there is a difference between frown lines and laugh lines. Eyes which smile acquire a different character than eyes that squint with suspicion or frown with disapproval; likewise lips and mouths.
As a result of our evolution, from days after birth we humans respond emotionally to very subtle differences in others’ faces; after all a grimace of pain, a snarl of anger, and a smile of welcome all bare the teeth (a sign of hostility in our near relatives the chimps) yet we can all tell he difference between them. And when you do one more often than the other over the years it leaves traces. So I think the quote is right on the mark, as A. Lincoln often was.
FYI, I am 70, and often taken for 15 years younger, and I’ll stand by my face, so to speak.
Mitch McConnell, not so much.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@jrosen:
Yeah, whatever. I stand by what I said, and reject your response as nothing but gratuitous blogorrhea.
Life and genetics give us our older faces, and we have relatively little control over it.
I might ask you to talk to my high school algebra teacher, who lived for 40 years with crippling arthritis so painful that one can only wonder how in the world he got out of bed every day and made it into the classroom to do his very excellent teaching. As a small time arthritis sufferer now, I cannot imagine the daily pain he must have gone through.
I’m sure the smart alecky remarks of Lincoln and Chanel would have brought a smile to his pain-wracked countenance, don’t you? I mean, it’s just so darned snarky and funny. And wrong, and complete bullshit.
Fuck you.
ExtremismInTheDefenseOfLiberty
@Linda Featheringill:
I am saying what I said. You take it to mean whatever you like.
Nutella
So where’s your Nobel prize, then?
jrosen
@Extremism
How about a little in defense of civility too? I certainly meant no harm or insult to you or your algebra teacher, who sounds like a remarkable character. If just a little admittedly gratuitous blogfoolery that happens to consider a different approach than yours can set off such a response, I’m glad I won’t be seeing your face any time soon, if ever.
But how will I know? Anyway, if you see me, don’t say hello, or anything else.
Tom Degan
If a tree falls in the forest….
….does it make a sound if Mitch McConnell is not there to deny that a sound was made?
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
kansi
What is going on with you guys? After reading the posts here, I am in danger of getting permanent frowny lines on my face, too.