There are some folks who seem to have a perfect hand at internet writing. Some, like Victor Davis Hanson, hold impressive academic qualifications, while others, like Hugh Hewitt, used radio and blogging together to become major forces in the blogosphere. Then there is Glenn Reynolds, who simply wrote so much so well and so succinctly about so many things, that he simply became a site everyone read. The rest of us have succeeded to minor degrees, myself included, although I have a habit of picking fights with people. I was going to say it was an ‘unfortunate’ habit, except that I believe that most of those fights needed to be had. Hence I receive precious few Christmas cards, though fortunately I am taken seriously by so few people, that almost no one regards me as a serious threat to their political ambitions. I am annoying, nothing more.
But I am the sort to stand up for causes, especially when I see good men left deserted by those who once claimed to be loyal. In this case, I got into a disagreement regarding the – now common – habit of heaping blame onto President Bush by republicans, who not only believe the lies from the Left but forget that the President was one of very few people to warn the nation years ago that this sort of crisis was coming. I am an accountant, and while I cannot claim to be the equal of Bernanke or Paulson, I have been following the events which brought about this crisis for three + years now, and my MBA studies have reinforced understanding of the economic pressures at work. Bush was and is right, and the many who are howling outrage against him now are completely, utterly, shamefully wrong.
As is the case with so many important issues, President Bush was dead on from the start. But his supporters deserted him, questioned his judgment when they themselves did not have a clue, and they cut his legs out from under him. This disintegrated the GOP unity, along with other extremely foolish defections by people with large egos and no sense of duty.
I will not question the President in this case for even a moment, because he was left totally abandoned. Not a single House or Senate republican went along with President Bush, even though none of them had a background which qualified them as well as Bush to understand the forces at work and none of them (except McCain) had lifted a finger to stop this crisis from happening, much less carried the issue to the public the way Bush did. At the point where he was presented with the bill, Bush had two choices, neither of them palatable. He could either sign a bill loaded with things he would never have chosen to support, or he could allow a bad situation to become a catastrophe.
You may either believe me or not, but if this bill had not passed, the Dow and the Dollar would each lose at least 25% of their value before the year’s end. By election day, things would be so bad that nearly every House and Senate seat would go to the Democrats because of the way the media has falsely laid blame, and you would see 2009 usher in an era of Socialism such as you would not have believed possible, unless – like me – you have studied similar crises in England, Japan, Russia, and Italy. Confidence was already fragile, and I do not think many people understand what was happening in European and Asian markets. To be blunt, a number of major nations were about to dump US Treasury notes, and the projections of consumer confidence would mean the worst economic collapse since 1932. Bush, as always, did the right thing, and as usual even the people who wanted him to do it, needed him to do it, made sure all the blame and none of the credit was laid at his name. Many republicans have believed the lies of evil men and deserted a good and honorable President, who also happened to be right again. The President has earned better than that from people who claim to be his friends. My loyalty is not so timid, nor my judgment so capricious that I believe men I know to be liars, rather than a proven friend and defender of the nation.
