Interesting Opinion Column by a Democrat Journalist

[Ishniknork]

Someone sent this to me today, thought some of you would like to read it:


Subject: Fwd: Interesting Column published Yesterday

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?


By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.
It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.
What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.
The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.
They end up worse off than before.
This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.
Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?
I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."
Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.
As Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."
These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.
Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!
What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?


Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.
And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.
If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.
But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign. You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.
If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.
If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.
There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)
If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.
Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.
But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.
If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.
Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.
Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.
Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.
So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?
Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?
You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.
That's where you are right now.
It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.
If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.
Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.
You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.
This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.
If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.
You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.
This article first appeared in The Rhinoceros Times of Greensboro, North Carolina, and is used here by permission

[Wagner]

wow.

[AzX5]

Amazing how much we will never hear from the media....

Perhaps the U.S. should pull out of Chicago.

Body count:
In the last six months: 292 killed (murdered) in Chicago ;
221 killed in Iraq.

Sens. Barack Obama & Dick Durbin
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
Gov. Rod Blogojevich
House leader Mike Madigan
Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan (daughter of Mike)
Mayor Richard M. Daley (son of Mayor Richard J. Daley)

.....our leadership in Illinois .....all Democrats.

Thank you for the combat zone in Chicago .
Of course, they're all blaming each other.
Can't blame Republicans; there aren't any!

State pension fund $44 Billion in debt, worst in country.
Cook County ( Chicago ) sales tax 10.25% highest in country. (Look 'em up if you want).

Chicago school system rated one of the worst in the country.
This is the political culture that Obama comes from in Illinois . And he's gonna 'fix' Washington politics for us!

[JCL]

Interesting opinion piece. I went and looked him up to see who he was. I don't think it is fair to call him a Democrat, as his views seem to be very wide-ranging. His pro-Bush, pro War on Terror, and Patriot Act support make him seem a little more Republican. He states that liberals are what is wrong with America. But then he is for gun control and against the NRA. He crosses back with his opinions on Proposition 8, pre-marital sex, and homosexuality. Quite a combination. Nothing at all wrong with all of the above, everyone should have their views, but putting in his byline that he is a Democrat seems a bit of a stretch. He is a paid political commentator, supporting each party by turn, depending on the issue and article. This piece follows on from his previous support of the Republicans.

Now to a comment on the content. How can one blame the entire financial mess on sub-prime mortgages, and not even mention the entire CDS market? Just seems odd.

[mwares212]

This is truly a good article. I am disgusted with how easily Americans can be controlled by the media. You would think people would be able to connect the dots. Hopefully some can by Tuesday.


I think the point about Chicago being so bad can also cross into Michigan, which has been in a single state recession caused mostly by the Democrats in power and Democratic Governor Granholm. The solution--elect more of same people and wish for "Change".

[FSETH]

Originally Posted by JCL

Interesting opinion piece. I went and looked him up to see who he was. I don't think it is fair to call him a Democrat, as his views seem to be very wide-ranging. His pro-Bush, pro War on Terror, and Patriot Act support make him seem a little more Republican. He states that liberals are what is wrong with America. But then he is for gun control and against the NRA. He crosses back with his opinions on Proposition 8, pre-marital sex, and homosexuality. Quite a combination. Nothing at all wrong with all of the above, everyone should have their views, but putting in his byline that he is a Democrat seems a bit of a stretch. He is a paid political commentator, supporting each party by turn, depending on the issue and article. This piece follows on from his previous support of the Republicans.

Now to a comment on the content. How can one blame the entire financial mess on sub-prime mortgages, and not even mention the entire CDS market? Just seems odd.

JCL, in all seriousness, why did you feel the need to spin everything, overlook the major points in this article and attack this persons personal character? Regardless of what he has said or done in his life doesnt negate the truths he has written about. There is so much more to this article than what you brought up. Such as;

-The clearly left leaning media bias in the U.S. (Example, we are more interested in Palins clothes than this)
-The fact that we are primarily in this mortgage/real estate situation on the shoulders of a Democratic policy that was loosened by another fellow Democrat.
-The fact that McCain and the republicans warned the Democrats on Fannie Mae years ago and they refused to cooperate and fix the problem.

The whole point of this article is that if the shoe were on the other foot it would be a completely different situation, which is true. Whether a Democrat or a Republican wrote the article is inconsequential, IMO. What should matter is the point of the article.

It is a great article and this is what people should be talking about.

[MrLabGuy]

Originally Posted by FSETH

JCL, in all seriousness, why did you feel the need to spin everything, overlook the major points in this article and attack this persons personal character? Regardless of what he has said or done in his life doesnt negate the truths he has written about. There is so much more to this article than what you brought up. Such as;

-The clearly left leaning media bias in the U.S. (Example, we are more interested in Palins clothes than this)
-The fact that we are primarily in this mortgage/real estate situation on the shoulders of a Democratic policy that was loosened by another fellow Democrat.
-The fact that McCain and the republicans warned the Democrats on Fannie Mae years ago and they refused to cooperate and fix the problem.

The whole point of this article is that if the shoe were on the other foot it would be a completely different situation, which is true. Whether a Democrat or a Republican wrote the article is inconsequential, IMO. What should matter is the point of the article.

It is a great article and this is what people should be talking about.

Attack the messenger. The truth does not care if you're Democrat or Republican. It would be as silly as me saying this text is blue while you argue that it can't be blue because I'm a Republican who is "Pro Choice".

[JCL]

Originally Posted by MrLabGuy

Attack the messenger. The truth does not care if you're Democrat or Republican

Might be a good idea to uncover truths somewhere other than on the editorial/opinion pages.

[JCL]

Originally Posted by FSETH

JCL, in all seriousness, why did you feel the need to spin everything, overlook the major points in this article and attack this persons personal character? Regardless of what he has said or done in his life doesnt negate the truths he has written about. There is so much more to this article than what you brought up. Such as;

-The clearly left leaning media bias in the U.S. (Example, we are more interested in Palins clothes than this)
-The fact that we are primarily in this mortgage/real estate situation on the shoulders of a Democratic policy that was loosened by another fellow Democrat.
-The fact that McCain and the republicans warned the Democrats on Fannie Mae years ago and they refused to cooperate and fix the problem.

The whole point of this article is that if the shoe were on the other foot it would be a completely different situation, which is true. Whether a Democrat or a Republican wrote the article is inconsequential, IMO. What should matter is the point of the article.

It is a great article and this is what people should be talking about.

I think that he is an interesting character. That is what I spoke about. I think the article would have been stronger without the "the writer is a Democrat" byline, that was my point.

You can call them all truths, but that is through your particular lens. I used phrases like "interesting article", "nothing wrong with these views", and "interesting that it is all about sub-prime mortgages and no mention of the CDS market". Any opinion on those statements?

I have posted previously (within the past two days) that I think that the US entertainment news media is biased in both directions, it depends on which channel or URL you follow. I see lots of bias.

Palin's clothes? Please. Nobody is interested in Palin's clothes. They are interested in the contrast between the hockey mom image that is being sold, and her campaign's actions. Nothing to do with clothes. They look quite nice actually, IMO.

"On the shoulders of the Democratic Party"? OK. I think there is quite enough blame to go around on both parties, I think they both did it, but if you like, let's blame one of them and not the other. That isn't biased.

As to the point of the article, I saw it as a blast against poor quality journalism. We have raging agreement on that point. I think it would have been more effective overall if the writer had not sunk into partisan politics, and had pointed out the nonsense on both sides. That would have been a journalistic triumph. Instead, he said journalism is terrible, and it is one-sided. He immediately went into the partisan mode that he claims to despair over. I thought that was unfortunate.

He got to sell more articles that way, because the Democrats will line up to hate him, and the Republicans will feel good because they are personally validated. Fine, but that isn't journalism.

I think that everything we believe is filtered through our own lens, our own values, our own understanding. You probably believe I am a Democrat, or I would guess so from your spin accusations. Nope. What I believe isn't relevant though. I was talking about journalism, not politics.

Thanks for your comments.

[FSETH]

Originally Posted by JCL

I think that he is an interesting character. That is what I spoke about. I think the article would have been stronger without the "the writer is a Democrat" byline, that was my point.

I agree with that. The title could have been different.

You can call them all truths, but that is through your particular lens. I used phrases like "interesting article", "nothing wrong with these views", and "interesting that it is all about sub-prime mortgages and no mention of the CDS market". Any opinion on those statements?

What is the big difference between a GSE and a CDC? In a way, can't Fannie Mae be considered a similar entity? The mortgage portfolio values were inflated, correct? I think the main issue was the way Clinton and the Democrats pushed lenders to give low credit rated people or people that couldn't afford it, home loans. IMO, that is the main cause of the problem we are facing today.

I have posted previously (within the past two days) that I think that the US entertainment news media is biased in both directions, it depends on which channel or URL you follow. I see lots of bias.

I have to disagree with that. The U.S. media (news, talk shows, actors, publications, musicians) is baised so far left it is crazy. Fox news is about the only legitimately right leaning source on mainstream TV. It cracks me up when people say that the media is not biased towards the left.

Palin's clothes? Please. Nobody is interested in Palin's clothes. They are interested in the contrast between the hockey mom image that is being sold, and her campaign's actions. Nothing to do with clothes. They look quite nice actually, IMO.

Not really true, as I said before I have family in other countries and that is all they are hearing about right now. Palin's freaking clothes. Talk show hosts here are talking about it, it is on the news, etc. I am not just talkingn about news channels, but the overall media in general. It is also funny that most talk show hosts are going all soft when it comes to questioning Obama and Biden and grilling McCain and Palin.

"On the shoulders of the Democratic Party"? OK. I think there is quite enough blame to go around on both parties, I think they both did it, but if you like, let's blame one of them and not the other. That isn't biased.

Lets see, Fannie Mae originated in 1938 as part of Democratic President FDR's New Deal;

Fannie Mae was founded as a government agency in the wake of the Great Depression in 1938, as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal in order to facilitate liquidity within the mortgage market.

Then, President Clinton loosened it up a little;

In 1999, Fannie Mae came under pressure from the Clinton administration to expand mortgage loans to low and moderate income borrowers.

Then Republicans like Bush, McCain and others tried to warn that Fannie Mae was out of control and in danger. Here was the response from the Democrats;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs

Let's not forget what happened to Clinton's buddy Raines over at Fannie Mae;

On December 18, 2006, U.S. regulators filed 101 civil charges against chief executiveFranklin Raines; chief financial officer J. Timothy Howard; and the former controller Leanne G. Spencer. The three are accused of manipulating Fannie Mae earnings to maximize their bonuses. The lawsuit sought to recoup more than $115 million in bonus payments, collectively accrued by the trio from 1998–2004, and about $100 million in penalties for their involvement in the accounting scandal.

As to the point of the article, I saw it as a blast against poor quality journalism. We have raging agreement on that point. I think it would have been more effective overall if the writer had not sunk into partisan politics, and had pointed out the nonsense on both sides. That would have been a journalistic triumph. Instead, he said journalism is terrible, and it is one-sided. He immediately went into the partisan mode that he claims to despair over. I thought that was unfortunate.

The article was about one situation and the fact the the person who wrote it felt that the media's bias was obvious. I agree with him 100% that if the shoe were on the other foot, the media in general would have had a field day at the expense of the Republicans.

He got to sell more articles that way, because the Democrats will line up to hate him, and the Republicans will feel good because they are personally validated. Fine, but that isn't journalism.

I think that everything we believe is filtered through our own lens, our own values, our own understanding. You probably believe I am a Democrat, or I would guess so from your spin accusations. Nope. What I believe isn't relevant though. I was talking about journalism, not politics.

Thanks for your comments.

I accuse you of spinning things because you are overlooking the facts and larger point of the article to rip someones personal life. That is what Democrats here like to do. Spin the focus away from the actual issue. How can you argue that Fannie Mae was created by Democrats, loosened by the Democrats, milked dry by the Democrats (Raines, etc), challenged by the Republicans, and defended once again by the Democrats? Those things happened. It doesn't matter what "lens" you are looking through. You can interpret that however you wish, but they happened.

What are your comments on Fannie Mae being started by a Democratic President? Fannie Mae regulations being "loosened" by Bill Clinton? The Republicans warning of the dangers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Raines and others being accused of milking Fannie Mae? Those are the issues, not the person who wrote the articles personal life.

I think our main disagreement is that you don't believe these things actually happened.