Saturday, September 19, 2009

Clinton-Bush: The Next Reagan-Bush

Frank Rich writes tonight in The New York Times a scathing cultural critique of our times. In it, he uses a moniker that jumped out at me: "Clinton-Bush."

When one analyzes the roots of our current fiscal calamity, the roots of the crisis quickly come to bear at the feet of Republican congressmen (yes, men) and the Clinton presidency which signed the seeds of destruction into law: namely, the repeal of the Depression era reforms of the Glass Steagall Act (known as the Gramm Leach Bliley Act) and the horrifically disastrous "Commodities Futures Modernization Act" of 2000.

So here's a minor paragraph from tomorrow's Sunday edition of The Times' Frank Rich column:
United States District Court judge in New York, Jed S. Rakoff, scathingly condemned the Obama Securities and Exchange Commission for letting Bank of America skate away with what Rakoff called an immoral and unjust wrist tap to settle charges that it covered up $3.6 billion paid out in bonuses when it purchased Merrill Lynch. How is this S.E.C. a change from the Clinton-Bush S.E.C. that ignored all the red flags on Bernie Madoff?
There's a reason Frank Rich earned his way into the Sunday Times column.