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Lies, lies, and still more lies issue from the mouths of leftists as they continue beating the class-warfare drum and demonizing Wall Street and the capitalist system itself in order to promote President Obama's nakedly statist agenda.

Amidst all the vomit-inducing phony outrage in liberal circles about AIG's payment of retention bonuses to employees, left-wingers continue to faithfully parrot the lines written for them (perhaps by the intelligentsia at the secretive JournoList.)

In an orgy of sanctimony the Left continues to argue -despite all evidence to the contrary- that the Bush years were an era of regulatory relaxation. (Would that it were true.)

Take the case of Faiz Shakir of John Podesta's propaganda factory, the allegedly nonpartisan Center for American Progress.

Shakir, who appeared on MSNBC today and didn't object when identified as a "Democratic strategist," is just one of many liberals attempting to create this myth of Dubya-era laissez-faire that is designed to be lapped up by lazy journalists, the uninformed, and the plain old gullible:

"I think there's been a culture of greed in Wall Street and there's been a culture of tolerance in Washington but that was really largely over the past administration. For eight years we tolerated these obscene profits from Wall Street, deregulation was the norm here in Washington and that was handed over to [Treasury Secretary Timothy] Geithner and the Obama administration," Shakir said.

If anything, the Bush years saw an explosion of regulatory activity.

As Scott S. Powell of the Hoover Institution notes, "The Bush administration made many mistakes, but deregulation was not one of them. Not only was there no major deregulation passed during the past eight years, but the Bush administration and a Republican Congress approved the most sweeping financial-market regulation in decades."

Powell is referring, of course, to Sarbanes-Oxley, which needlessly imposed tremendous costs on business.

Another culprit was ridiculous "mark-to-market" accounting standards that help strangle otherwise healthy companies.

Don't expect to hear any of these points raised by the Left. To liberals, government can do no wrong - unless it's the Bush administration. 

View all comments (5) | Leave a comment

Angel| 3.18.09 @ 8:34PM

I smell libtard desperation. We've got to scream the truth from the rooftops--over and over again--they can't keep our Conservative message down anymore. Viva Conservative Media!!

Thomas| 3.18.09 @ 9:43PM

Relax. The screaming, crying and handwringing on capital hill over the AIG bonuses will die off quickly, with little or no ramifications for those who were granted bonuses. AIG was a government laundering operation. It was given over $170 billion in taxpayer money of which 1/2 was then given to other companies and even foreign banks. The bonuses were a payoff to AIG for the service.
Members of congress are already falling back on the incompetent boob defense.

ruth| 3.18.09 @ 10:48PM

But TOTUS--Teleprompter Of The United States is gonna stick. Rush is frickin' smart.

rc| 3.19.09 @ 12:31PM

the liars are those that grandstand about empty regulations and laws. regulation without enforcement is meaningless....

StewartIII| 3.26.09 @ 11:53PM

Podesta Plant at White House Presser -- Brace Yourself for MSM Non-Outrage
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-vadum/2009/03/26/podesta-plant-white-house-presser-brace-yourself-msm-non-outrage

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More Blog Posts by Matthew Vadum

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/03/18/the-left-is-still-lying-about

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