Peggy Noonan's Friday column fingering fudging as a factor in the declining credibility of Washington & Wall Street is on to something. She notes how the Marines acknowledged that what seemed a tragic error a while ago, when an F-18 crashed into a residential area while trying an emergency landing, turned out to have been serial negligence by Marine personnel. The careers of the offenders are over, and the Marines apologized publicly. Compare this to Barney Frank & others in Congress grilling executives and executive branch officials while themselves admitting nothing. Investors' Business Daily details Frank's leading role in fighting off reform of Fannie & Freddie that cost taxpayers trillions and helped trigger our massive economic crisis--over which Frank is utterly unrepentant as he prepares to skewer private sector villains. (Mind you, they deserve the pillory, but so does Frank--on the Mall.)
Think of as well the Alibi Ike stance of President 44, blaming everything on his predecessor as he compiles his own enemies list targeting private sector and GOP only, as shown by columnist Michael Goodwin. Goodwin writes:
The President dismisses the growing perception he is adding to the economic pain. Asked about the markets, Obama waved them off as like a "tracking poll in politics" that "bobs up and down day to day."
It was a telling moment, for the markets on his watch have moved almost exclusively down. And the 55 million households that hold mutual funds are watching their savings and retirements vanish in great gobs.
Most are decidedly middle class, making them collateral damage of this war.
MG adds:
But Obama has expressed little interest in prosecuting those who cooked the books to make billions and undermined the financial system. Nor is he interested in rebuking Congress, including leading members of his own party, who fostered destructive lending and borrowing policies. He seems comfortable with his aides, including those who saw nothing amiss in their former roles as Wall Street players and regulators.
Instead, Obama's class-war language, most of it written into prepared speeches, looks like selective anger, calculated to stoke public emotion to build support for his expansive agenda. That agenda, which revolves around a dramatic increase in Washington power, relies on tax hikes on the same successful businesses and individuals he denounces.
Bill Kristol suggested on Fox News Sunday that Team Obama defer targeting Rush Limnbaugh with some "clever double-bank shot" aimed at swinging six independents into Camp Obama.
Peg & Bill are to something.
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