09:45 am
Henry Paulson Is As Big A Liar as John McCain
Bet you don’t remember Chip Diller. Maybe this will help:
That’s Kevin Bacon as Chip Diller in Animal House (sorry for only a screenshot — I couldn’t find a clip anywhere). Bacon’s most famous line, delivered while screaming hysterically, was
REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELL!
These days, there are thousands of Chip Dillers walking around. They’re the people who continue to insist that everything is okay even when they know it’s not the case. To put it another way, they aggressively deny reality. Or you could just call them Bush Administration officials.
Take, for example our new fearless leader lender, Henry Paulson.
REMAIN CALM!! ALL IS WELL!!
Kudos to Chris Wallace (of all people) for pushing Paulson on this. But go back and listen again. Paulson admits that they knew six months ago, at the time of the Bear Stears bailout, that this was coming. But he didn’t think that they could get Congress to agree to a bigger bailout, so they didn’t even try.
There is no way we could have gone to Congress and got the authority to inject capital into the banking system by buying illiquid assets unless there was a clear and urgent and obvious need. So although many of us looking at it said it could come to something like this, we [were] hoping to avoid it. The key here was the speed of the housing price correction.
So let me get this straight.
Paulson, among others, knew six months ago this was coming. And he knew what it would take to fix it.
And he (they) did nothing — nothing! — to prevent it. They bailed out Bear Stearns, sat back, and crossed their fingers and maybe their toes. They waited, hoping — hoping! — that things wouldn’t go to hell.
Knowing what he knew, Paulson also went on national television and lied:
WALLACE: Are more Wall Street firms in danger, at risk of going under?
PAULSON: Chris, I’ve got great confidence in our financial markets, our financial institutions, our markets are resilient, they’re flexible. Our institutions, our banks, our investment banks are strong.
That’s not a fudge, a misstatement, or a misunderstanding. It’s a flat out John-McCain-in-full-campaign-mode lie.
Just remember. . .
REMAIN CALM! ALL IS WELL!
And now we’re supposed to reward this guy by giving him dictatorial control over the economy?
I have a better idea. Let’s impeach him instead.
Chip Diller, white courtesy phone please.
Hat tip: Think Progress