Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Financial 'Blah Blah' At Cooper Union This Morning

I didn't listen to the president's address this morning, from Cooper Union, on regulating the financial sector.

Leaving aside the not-so-subtle attempt to portray himself as the second Lincoln, using that venue, I wasn't about to waste my time listening to an uninformed, naive politician natter on about financial regulation. Experience has shown that, from this president, all you'll hear about financial sector regulation is some ill-informed notions of consumer protection, the vilification of private institutions, and a complete ignorance of Congress' own culpability in the recent financial mess.

Including, by the way, the president's participation in obstructing cloture on a vote for a Republican financial regulation reform bill that helped lead to the 2007-2008 meltdown. And Obama was, according to Peter Wallison, writing in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal,

"the third largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, behind only Sens. Chris Dodd and John Kerry."

And, besides, I begin to become physically ill when I hear him begin his sing-songy drone in that annoying tone of voice. Complete with what he evidently thinks is a folksy dropping of occasional "g"s. I'm from Illinois, and we don't actually talk that way out on the Plains, once we've been to college. Not to mention grad school.

Funny how he forgot to mention those campaign contributions, when he recently accused Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of meeting with banking representatives before deciding on his position regarding Chris Dodd's deeply-flawed attempt at financial regulatory "reform."

I'm sure the evening cable news programs and tomorrow's Journal will provide me with all the details I need to know about this morning's speech. How the president railed against and demonized the legitimate expression of opinion by publicly-held banks, through lobbyists, concerning regulation affecting the sector.

With this in mind, I expect to write more in tomorrow's post about this morning's political non-event at Cooper Union.

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