Talk Radio Watchdog

The crush of other business has forced me to take at least a temporary break from writing this blog. Sorry for the interruption. I don’t know when we’ll return.

One of the favorite mantras of conservative talk radio is that Congressional Democrats are to blame for the mortgage crisis that sparked our economic meltdown. But a meticulously researched article in today’s New York Times traces the roots of the crisis to President Bush’s campaign to encourage lower-income Americans to stop renting and buy homes.

 

For much of Mr. Bush’s tenure, government statistics show, incomes for most families remained relatively stagnant while housing prices skyrocketed. That put homeownership increasingly out of reach for first-time buyers…

So Mr. Bush had to, in his words, “use the mighty muscle of the federal government” to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives. He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for low-income lending.

Concerned that down payments were a barrier, Mr. Bush persuaded Congress to spend up to $200 million a year to help first-time buyers with down payments and closing costs.

The president also leaned on mortgage brokers and lenders to devise their own innovations. “Corporate America,” he said, “has a responsibility to work to make America a compassionate place.”

And corporate America, eyeing a lucrative market, delivered in ways Mr. Bush might not have expected, with a proliferation of too-good-to-be-true teaser rates and interest-only loans that were sold to investors in a loosely regulated environment.

And he pushed to allow first-time buyers to qualify for federally insured mortgages with no money down. Republican Congressional leaders and some housing advocates balked, arguing that homeowners with no stake in their investments would be more prone to walk away… Many economic experts, including some in the White House, now share that view.

Click here to read the entire story.

Around the radio dial today, some conservative talk show hosts are livid about — while others sound resigned to — President Bush’s decision to give more than $17 billion in emergency aid to GM and Chrysler.

Bush says it would be irresponsible to let the auto industry collapse in the middle of a severe recession:

It would worsen a weak job market and exacerbate the financial crisis. It could send our suffering economy into a deeper and longer recession. And it would leave the next president to confront the demise of a major American industry in his first days of office.

Glenn Beck condemned the move as an abuse of government authority. Sounding a familiar theme, Beck said government’s only role is to protect life, liberty and property, adding:

Your country is no longer your country. Your constitution is no longer your constitution… It’s reckless, it’s dangerous and it certainly is not the proper role of government.

Always the libertarian, Neal Boortz contended:

To save an employee’s health benefits and retirement benefits is not a good reason to save a company. That is not a reason to seize money from the taxpayers and pour it into an unviable (sic) business, so that people won’t suffer. That’s not the function of government.

Filling-in for Bill O’Reilly, Philadelphia talker Dom Giordano said that after giving signals he was coming to his senses, Bush caved in and undercut Republican lawmakers who opposed the bailout. Giordano said the President’s motive is to protect his legacy so he won’t be blamed for the auto industry’s demise.

And journalist Byron York told Laura Ingraham’s audience, that approving the loan money now is like “kicking the can down the road,” allowing the Democrats to deal with the problem next year.

Although he’s also an opponent of the bailout loans, Rush Limbaugh sounded the most sanguine of the conservative talk radio hosts. “It is what it is,” Limbaugh said today, “but at some point we’re gonna have to deal with reality.”

Obviously there’s no right answer, no magic solution to cure Detroit’s problems. But after listening to the talkmeisters of the right, I am once again struck by how easy it is for them to remove any trace of humanity from their thinking; and how they’re able to subordinate real suffering to the principles of their conservative manifesto.

Several more personalities from the radio right have weighed-in on Caroline Kennedy’s drive to be replace Hillary Clinton as U.S. Senator from New York.

We reported yesterday that conservative feminist Tammy Bruce predicted the right wing will be at odds with any Democrat named to the seat; and that if she’s going to disagree with someone, it should be someone like Kennedy, who has “led her life with some dignity.”

As one might expect, many of Bruce’s colleagues don’t see it that way.

Sean Hannity on Caroline Kennedy in the Senate:

I’m sure she’s a lovely woman. I have nothing against her. But she’s not qualified. She has no experience to be a Senator from a state like New York.

Hannity said the mainstream media should investigate Kennedy as they did Sarah Palin.

As usual, Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are on the same page. Here’s Limbaugh:

She’s a dilettante. She’s a debutante. I don’t know the woman, but I have to think that there are some people in the Senate just as unqualified as she is. The difference is they did get elected….
It is kind of interesting… it’s quite illustrative to sit here and have ostensibly a serious conversation about the qualifications of Caroline Kennedy, which are zip, zero, nada. I mean let’s be honest, there are none, in the real sense, and yet, and yet the Drive-Bys spent months, the Democrats telling us Sarah Palin is not qualified, and she’s a governor! She’s been elected to a number of offices.

And Bill O’Reilly told his radio audience:

It’s ridiculous. We can’t be having this. She doesn’t know anything about how the folks are living, she’s a rich kid and she’s pretty much sat it out her whole life. She’s not a bad person… but we need problem solvers, people who are in touch with you.

So… no real surprises here, but we haven’t heard the last of it. Stay tuned.

The spirit of Christmas in in the air. I could feel it today when right-wing radio talker Sean Hannity and Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog organization, exchanged awards.

Hannity proclaimed Media Matters winner of his “First Annual Left-Wing Obamamania Media Propaganda Sleaze Award” for being the group that “does more lying and smearing than your average left-wing Obamamania media supporters.” His gift: A continuous tape loop of Barack Obama campaign speeches.

Ever gracious in presenting the award, Hannity described Media Matters as “a radical left-wing group founded by left-wing millionaires” and as “misinformers, PC police and propagandists.”

The reason for the kind words (and Hannity failed to mention this on his radio program) is that Media Matters had just named him the “2008 Misinformer of the Year,” calling him “a prolific and influential purveyor of conservative misinformation.”

Click here for the Media Matters article.