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Hernando Today

'October Surprise' Came Early

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By DONALD J. MYERS, A Mind of My Own

Hernando Today

Published: October 3, 2008

There are probably some who do not know about "October Surprises." An October Surprise occurs during presidential elections. It is when one party, the Democrats, presents an unexpected embarrassing attack on the opposite party days before the election.
An example was in 1980 when it was charged that George Bush had flown to Iraq and made an agreement with that government not to release our embassy personnel until after the election so that Ronald Reagan could get the credit. There was absolutely no evidence, but the Speaker of the House demanded an investigation because of the nature of the charges. Another example was in 2000 when a report was released just days before the election that George Bush had been arrested years before on a DUI.
Since last week we have been inundated about the "crisis" in the market. We are told that this is the greatest threat to our economy since the Great Depression. Something must be done immediately in order to save the union. The proposal was to float a bill for $700 billion dollars. The American people were incensed that not only had this happened, but that they were going to be responsible for its cost. The switchboards and Internet were lit up by citizens contacting their representatives.
The Democrats talked about how this bill had to be passed, and it needed Republican support. Since the Democrats have a majority in the House, they do not need a single Republican vote, but they needed the cover so if this bill were a failure the blame would be shared. When the voting started, the Republicans noticed that those Democrats who were in competitive elections were voting against the bill. Only seven Democrats who are in competitive races for their seats voted for the bill. Forty percent of the Democrats voted against the bill to include 33 percent of Barney Frank's Democrats on his committee.
All day Tuesday the media has berated the Republicans for not supporting this bailout. Nothing is said about the Democrats. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has also piled on by blaming Republicans, and yet she could not get her Democrats to support her. The truth is that this was all a ploy in order to make Republicans look bad. This has been portrayed as a "crisis" in order for the Democrats to again beat up on this administration, and the mainstream media is adding to the attack.
Why is the media ignoring the fact that Republicans and President Bush have tried several times to control Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during this decade? Each time the Democrats fought against it. In 2004, the Dems went on record about how good both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were doing. They spoke about how these organizations had exceeded goals in having new homeowners. The fact that too many of these people had no chance of ever repaying the loans did not seem to matter. That was the definition of "affordable housing." Other taxpayers would pick up the tab. These organizations given untold thousands to their benefactors in Congress as a reward.
The people who caused this problem now want to be in charge of correcting it. What is wrong with that picture? This would be like the bank robbers being responsible for providing guards for the new bank. It does not make sense, and Americans see that. Why else would so many representatives in close elections vote against it? Throw the bums out.
Listen to the left. They say that now is not the time to point fingers about blame but rather to fix the problem. There is no way that we will ever fix the problem if we do not demand that those who caused it are held responsible.

Donald J. Myers can be contacted at DMyersUSMC@aol.com.

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