“Most speakers hate to be interrupted, but I enjoy it, having spent about 10 years in cable news getting interrupted and yelled at by a large bald man from Louisiana called James Carville. It actually makes me uncomfortable if people don’t scream at me as I speak.”
That was Daily Caller editor Tucker Carlson, speaking to an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference three years ago, in a scene that opens Joel Meares’s excellent 2011 profile of Carlson for CJR. The remark, I think, forces a sober reconsideration of the media dust-up of the day, in which Daily Caller reporter Neil Munro interrupted—or, as many accounts have put it, “heckled”—Barack Obama as the president gave a statement on immigration policy at the White House.
To the consternation of established journalists, Carlson has stood by his reporter, couching his defense in brave journo-speak: reporters are supposed to get their questions answered, not just be stenographers to power, etc. But who knows? Maybe that’s simply a pose, and down deep Carlson actually believes that his reporter was being solicitous, helping Obama get comfy as he addressed a politically touchy subject. Either that, or he’s just eager to bring the fine discourse standards of cable news to the Rose Garden.
Update: One of the items linked above is this collection of statements from The Daily Caller, in which both Munro and publisher Neil Patel say the reporter was simply trying to time his question to be first, not to interrupt or heckle Obama. Carlson, by contrast, adopts a pro-heckling-the-president position.
Compare Ron Regan who was constantly cut off by media, who graciously came back over and over to the podium to take more hits. Didn't whine, took it like a man, and answered the questions. No hubris.
Obama is hamhanded,raised hackles, hubris and threating demeanor, something only expected from a gangbanger or a Muslim who's religion just got criticized.
How did this man become president?
#1 Posted by Stupendous, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 05:42 PM
Condensed version of this article: wahhhh, wahhhh .. leave Obama alone! How's he ever going to get re-elected if people keep asking him questions!
how did this man become president?
With the help of the same "established journalists" who are filled with so much righteous indignation about this.
#2 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 06:17 PM
Tucker Carlson, you have no class either..
and I used to respect you...
you can defend your reporter's actions without saying
how PROUD you are of him..
Idealogy above all? to get your question across, no matter what?
Thats pure disrespectful Bull s---
#3 Posted by Buddy, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 06:25 PM
Reagan? I remember that conference!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzKUBLK9b9A
Those were the days.
#4 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 06:32 PM
This does bring up a few interesting questions to ponder and observations?
If the president wont take questions at the end of a press conference, why does the press corps even go to these things? Most people know they have relegated themselves to the position of royal throne sniffer by this point, but seriously ... why not just call it in?
This one instance is guaranteed to get more coverage on the newscasts tonite then Gunwalker has gotten in 2 years.
#5 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 06:56 PM
Mike H wrote: If the president wont take questions at the end of a press conference, why does the press corps even go to these things?
padikiller responds: To take dictation... Why else?
Well let's see what adding a few million new job seekers does to the ole' unemployment rate now...
I think this panic-driven Hispandering will backfire on Obama.
And, for the record, I don't have a problem with his decision - just the timing. If he calculated that he could stay in office by doubling deportations, I have no doubt that he would have done so.
It's all about him, all the time. It's never about what's best for the country.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 07:21 PM
this is not about Journalism or "Right to know", or an isue "important to the American People" ( hearing the excuses makes one want to gag)
This is about respect. If the President turns to leave it's over.
As for Tucker Carlson likening Neil Munroe to Sam Donaldson who famously "yelled" at President Reagan. Please! The difference is Sam had class.
#7 Posted by mike whatley, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 08:08 PM
Ron Regan? . . . never heard of him. Perhaps you meant President Ronald Reagan(?). . . . nterrupted during a speech? . . . don't think so. Perhaps you meant during the give and take of a press conference(?).
#8 Posted by Gus, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 08:29 PM
Finally, the right thread.
Of course, if we're going to get all nostalgic about past presidents interrupted,
anyone remember people getting huffy over that Carol Coleman interview a while back?
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_06/004222.php
Unless you're a fricken protestor with code pink or teabaggers for truth, you don't interrupt the speech, you interrupt during the question period during the response to your question just like Helen Thomas did when Bush finally asked a question of her 7.9 years into his presidency.
If someone had pulled this on Bush, jobs would have been lost, networks would have been demonized, press passes revoked, and bombs would have been dropped.
This is yet another episode of republicans being ahistorcal a-holes.
#9 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Fri 15 Jun 2012 at 09:35 PM
I seem to remember Bush being physically assaulted by a shoe-throwing reporter and I don't remember any of these newly-offended "professional journalists" getting bent out of shape over it. Indeed, CJR treated the incident lightly, as a joke.
While it can be argued that the form of the questions was inappropriate or disrespectful, the questions posed to Obama, and the ones he dodged, are fair ones.
What will be the effect of adding millions of new job seekers on the unemployment rate? How will American citizens who are already having a hard time finding good jobs compete with illegal aliens who are issued work permits?
HUH?
When a liberal President has his ass in a sling, then all of a sudden the liberal press places form over substance and decorum over disclosure.
Pitiful.
#10 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 08:46 AM
A reporter reports. When you insert yourself into the story, by heckling or otherwise, you become part of the story.
Being on the side of the angels does not change this. You are still an observer -- the eyes and ears for the rest of us who are not there. In your own style, we merely want you to tell us what you saw and heard.
If you cannot settle for this limited role and have the urge to do more, then please leave your reporter's credentials at the door. There is nothing wrong with acting on your convictions. But you absolutely cannot do so while covering an event you are reporting on.
This is the golden rule of journalism. Even pundits try to follow it.
#11 Posted by kafantaris, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 09:08 AM
How did this man become president?
A vast majority of the voters chose Obama-Biden over McCain-Palin, "Stupendous".
No wonder you guys are Republicans, you can't even remember last week.
~
#12 Posted by ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 11:49 AM
kafantaris wrote: A reporter reports.
TRANSLATION: Don't ask questions (of Obama).
Such is the state of "professional journalism" here.
According to Munro, this is just a case of bad timing... He thought Obama was finished. But if Munro was out of line...
What do you "professional journalists" propose to do with a President who sidesteps questions?
The answer to "How will your new policy affect the millions of Americans who are out of work" isn't "this is the best thing for the country".
If this new policy is the "best thing for the country", then why did Obama wait three and a half years to implement it?
HUH?
The "professional journalists" of the MSM are nothing but Obama lapdogs.
#13 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 11:50 AM
"I seem to remember Bush being physically assaulted by a shoe-throwing reporter and I don't remember any of these newly-offended "professional journalists" getting bent out of shape over it. Indeed, CJR treated the incident lightly, as a joke."
I forget. What happened to that guy.
9 months of beatings? I, myself, wouldn't support that kind of response for criticism of the American president, but if you support that than I guess what can we do.
Sorry Neil Munro. Padikiller wants you to have comparable treatment to Muntadar al-Zaidi. We're going to have to bomb the hell out of your country and beat you for nine months. It's only fair.
This is yet another episode of republicans being ahistorical a-holes.
#14 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 01:13 PM
PURE UNADULTERATED RACISM. That an Afican-American has been duly elected president of the United States enrages Carlson and his fellow Klansmen.
#15 Posted by David Ehrenstein, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 01:17 PM
@Thimbles - Show me where any of the "professional journalists" of the MSM castigated their shoe-throwing colleague for breaching journalistic decorum and then you might have a point.
The LAST thing Obama or you liberals want to do is to address the substance of Munro's question, and the fact that the Iraqi government mistreated the shoe-thrower isn't relevant to the topic of the thread.
When Bush was in charge, it was all about "speaking truth to power". Now, "professional journalists" are disallowed to ask questions from a President who refuses to answer them? They are there only to take dictation?
Get real.
@David Ehrenstein - The race card doesn't play here. This has nothing to do with the color of Obama's skin - Indeed, Hermain Cain was the Tea Party front-runner, and he is several shades darker than Obama is.. There are all kinds of people of varying shades of color on the right side of the aisle.
So leave the silly, juvenile name-calling alone.
#16 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 01:34 PM
"What will be the effect of adding millions of new job seekers on the unemployment rate? How will American citizens who are already having a hard time finding good jobs compete with illegal aliens who are issued work permits?"
If you read the statement:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/06/15/remarks-president-immigration
It not about new Americans and new job seekers. It's about people who were brought and raised here as children and are American for all intensive purposes except for their legal status. These are not new job seekers. They are the job seeker who go to your schools, harvest your crops, and fight in your military.
And talking about the effect of this policy on the unemployment rate is stupid not just because the people affected are already here, but what do you think has been going on the last three?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/20/us-obama-immigration-idUSTRE78J05720110920
"President Barack Obama says he backs immigration reform, announcing last month an initiative to ease deportation policies, but he has sent home over 1 million illegal immigrants in 2-1/2 years -- on pace to deport more in one term than George W. Bush did in two."
#17 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 01:40 PM
Time to toll the Reality Bell:
1. The people who will benefit from Obama's new policy are NOT AUTHORIZED TO WORK HERE.
2. The people who will benefit from Obama's new policy WILL BE AUTHORIZED TO WORK HERE.
To argue that this new policy will have no effect on unemployment rates or on the ability of American citizens to find jobs is just stupid and silly.
And Thimbles makes one of points here, no doubt inadvertently.
If this new immigration policy is "good for America", then why did Obama spend the first three and a half years of his presidency deporting people like crazy?
Why did it only become "good for America" when he's down in polls and getting spanked by Romney?
HUH?
Oh wait... I forgot...
We're not allowed to ask questions.
#18 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 02:27 PM
A-hole.
#19 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 02:33 PM
Well wonders never cease!
The WaPo seems to be asking the same question Munro did:
"But Steven Camarota, a researcher with the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, said that the Obama administration was not taking into account the new measure’s probable impact on competition for jobs at the low end of the economic scale, where chronic unemployment is highest. Among Americans with less than a high school education, he said, the jobless rate is 13 percent.
“It doesn’t seem the administration is considering the cascading consequences,” Camarota said. “What does this mean for unemployed Americans who will be competing for jobs with a million-plus people who can now apply for work authorization? Is this really a good idea?”
#20 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 03:30 PM
First of all, the President is not obligated to take questions at all, or even deal with the press. The press is invited to these events out of courtesy. Reporters are not obligated to attend. They could stay in their little cubicle or go out and do other kinds of reporting, and frankly, no one would miss them at all. Interested people can watch the event on video, helpfully provided by the White House and also on CSPAN. If they want to attend, or are assigned to attend, they are accommodated and expected to act like a professional.
Secondly, the reporter who threw the shoe at Bush was an Iraqi journalist, and the event occurred in Iraq, so the false equivalence here is flop-sweaty preposterous. Not surprising from the whining dumbasses on the right.
Thirdly, Sam Donaldson about the insulting (to him) comparison of his work Sam Donaldson Rejects Comparison To Reporter Who Interrupted Obama:
I'd say that's about right. I'd think under the circumstances that this jerk-off presents a security problem and Daily Caller ought to be decertified as a news venue for purposes of being admitted to the White House. You never know what these seething, angry white nationalists on the right are going to pull next.
#21 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 08:50 PM
I miss the good old days when right wing news op's like Talon News were more honest and uncut about their approach to power.
Whatever happened to those right wing news op's?
#22 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 10:43 PM
And what happened to the non-partisan guy who hated people who defined
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/what_was_cnn_money_thinking.php#comment-61768
"a "real" expert means some guy Trudy finds at a left-wing advocacy group who says what she wants to hear.
Anyone who says something she doesn't want to hear is a "fake" expert, by implication."
So an immigration group connected to John Tanton which exists to "to take an analytical approach to immigration from a Republican point of view so that they can give cover to Republicans who oppose immigration for other reasons." is suddenly okay?
You want to improve employment? You want to improve wages? Enforce labor law and hire people.
Build some damn roads and fix some damn pipes.
Stop firing teachers, firefighters, police, etc..
Funny. I don't see any conservatives standing up and supporting that. In fact they support the opposite. Kinda makes you think they don't really care about employment at all.
Because they're a-holes.
#23 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 16 Jun 2012 at 10:52 PM
@Thimbles
If you have a beef with the guy quoted in the article, take it up with the Washington Post, dude.
I didn't write the article and, as I wrote, I personally think Obama's decision is good one. I would have done the same thing, and I would have taken it one step further and offered a road to citizenship for noncriminal illegal aliens who came here as children. If I had the power to do so. But I don't, and neither does he.
He has sworn to uphold and enforce the law, and he has abdicated this responsibility for political expediency. The Constitution clearly gives Congress the authority to regulate immigration and not the President.
The real question to be answered regarding his decision is "why did he make it now, after deporting more people in three and half years than Bush did in eight years?"
If this new immigration policy is "good for America", then why didn't he do it in 2009?
HUH?
ANSWER: Because he is the crappiest President we've seen since Harding and he is in a Level 12 panic over the election.
The man will do anything to gain power and to expand Gubmint. Kill U.S. citizens by executive order. Expand wiretapping. Expand drone attacks. Use satellite and drones to spy on American people on American soil. Kill business. Etc. Etc. Etc.
He should be impeached.
#24 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 12:59 AM
"If you have a beef with the guy quoted in the article, take it up with the Washington Post, dude."
I don't have a beef with the Washington post, I expect bad, beltway right leaning reporting from them most of the time.
They publish Marc Thiessen, fergodssake.
But you had the beef with Trudy, not over her and her expert's conclusions, but because her choice came from a slanted source. You should have the beef with the slanted source of the Washington post reporter, if you were trying to be consistent. But you're not. Why? You're republican.
"He has sworn to uphold and enforce the law, and he has abdicated this responsibility for political expediency."
As one who watched violations of law under Reagan and Bush via arms sales to Shia extermists to support terrorists based in Honduras and signing statements which invalidated passed law + the appointing of officials which would sanction republican lawbreaking and persecute democratic irregularities as if they were sins against humanity, I sympathize with your sentiment.
But your offense is soooo much on a different scale than ours when it comes to what past presidents have done. I mean you are pointing at termite mounds in the shadows of the Himalayas and expecting us to be amazed at the audacity of insects.
"The man will do anything to gain power and to expand Gubmint. Kill U.S. citizens by executive order. Expand wiretapping. Expand drone attacks. Use satellite and drones to spy on American people on American soil."
See above.
"He should be impeached."
A republican believes a democrat should be impeached. That's about as suprising as a republican refusing to recognize a democrat's legitimacy in the first place.
I think we should all know the reason why by now.
#25 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 03:05 AM
C'mon, Padi. Was Harding really so bad? Sure, as with every president after Cleveland, he had some "progressive" inclinations and his administration had at least one major scandal. But he also didn't try to tax, borrow, spend, or inflate the country out of recession — and naturally, it worked. Unlike every president after Cleveland, he was fairly non-interventionist, all-around: he didn't go looking for wars, and probably was the last non-Keynesian president. These are good things.
#26 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 04:07 AM
Thimbles latest bit of idiocy - his false assertion that I am a Republican - is kinda shot to Hell by the inconvenient truth that I called for George W. Bush's impeachment in this very forum.
Better luck next fabrication, Thimbo!
#27 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 10:09 AM
Republican is as republican does.
Meanwhile, on the legitimate impeachment front:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/watergate-40-years-later-9747335
"Instead, the true "lessons" of Watergate were how we could abandon our responsibilities as citizens, and twist the obligations of self-government, so that "the country" would never have to "go through" anything like that again. What was a triumph of self-government in 1974 was reckoned to be such a national trauma by 1986 that our elite institutions formed an iron circle to keep it from happening to Ronald Reagan and his people because the country "couldn't take another failed presidency." (As illustrated in On Bended Knee, Mark Hertsgaard's essential account of the lapdog press under Reagan, even Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham, who'd stood all the gaff when her newspaper was alone on an island in its early Watergate coverage, was concerned that the press might go too far.) And the final absurd twist came with the impeachment of Bill Clinton for crimes against the Seventh Commandment, an exercise in Kabuki that really was only the final act in an ongoing campaign of dirty tricks. Kenneth Starr had far more in common with H.R. Haldeman than he did with Archibald Cox, and Henry Hyde had more in common with Gordon Liddy than he did with Peter Rodino. History was thereby turned on its head until its brains fell out its ears.
The lasting "lesson" of Watergate, it appears, is that self-government was too dangerous, that the perils of it outweigh its values, and that the obligations of citizenship, beyond those which are purely ceremonial, are too heavy for citizens to bear. Between now and 2014, there are going to be lots of 40-year anniversaries marking the various episodes in the grand pageant of Watergate, and all the usual suspects will deal in all the customary banalities. Good Lord willing and the creek don't rise, the blog will be around to mark them all as well, because Watergate really did mean something at the time. There was a moment, pure and fleeting, where it looked as though another way really was possible."
With Republicans, lawbreaking has to be forgotten and ignored because to bring it up might break a citizen's faith in the country. Better to look forward.
With Democrats, infractions have to be blown up into capital crimes because to not investigate every little wrinkle in the bed sheet (including the Christmas Card lists lost in the tangle) puts the integrity of the country in peril.
We live in idiotic times.
#28 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 02:00 PM
PS. On the subject of Tucker Carlson, I can find quotes that are more inciteful (ooo, a pun) than that of the Meares interview:
On Helen Thomas:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200603270001
"CARLSON: Thanks and welcome to The Situation. We appreciate you tuning in tonight.
Tonight reporter-turned-propagandist Helen Thomas uses a White House press conference to air her political views. And it's not the first time. We'll bring you Thomas's top five most over-the-top moments in the briefing room.
[...]
CARLSON: Welcome back. Long before we were born, Helen Thomas was a news reporter based at the White House, or so they claim. And at some point, many years ago, she decided to go into the opinion business, and she's been there every since. The most recent outburst came today, when she barked at President Bush during a news conference, but it was only the latest. In tonight's top five list, we give you our favorite Helen Thomas bloviating in the briefing room moments.
Thomas has been hanging around the White House briefing room for more than four decades, starting with the Kennedy administration. Whatever you think of her questionable skills as a journalist, she isn't shy."
http://www.salon.com/2008/03/08/carlson/singleton/
"CARLSON: Right. But I mean, since journalistic standards in Great Britain are so much dramatically lower than they are here, it’s a little much being lectured on journalistic ethics by a reporter from the “Scotsman,” but I wonder if you could just explain what you think the effect is on the relationship between the press and the powerful. People don’t talk to you when you go out of your way to hurt them as you did in this piece.
Don’t you think that hurts the rest of us in our effort to get to the truth from the principals in these campaigns?
PEEV: If this is the first time that candid remarks have been published about what one campaign team thinks of the other candidate, then I would argue that your journalists aren’t doing a very good job of getting to the truth."
Ahh consistency. Once an a-hole, always an a-hole,
#29 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 02:12 PM
Actually, Clinton was impeached for perjury, a felony, and an act to which he eventually confessed when he was disbarred.
But hey!
Why let the mere truth ruin another liberal fairy tale, right?
#30 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 02:13 PM
"Clinton was impeached for perjury, a felony, and an act to which he eventually confessed when he was disbarred."
You left a word out.
#31 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 02:33 PM
In other news, McClatchy has been doing a series of articles on that wonderful republican paradise from which the world's richest man now hails from:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/17/152220/mexicos-maquiladora-labor-system.html
"Mexico's 'maquiladora' labor system keeps workers in poverty
...
Some four decades after welcoming foreign assembly plants and factories, known as maquiladoras, Mexico has seen only a trickle of its industrial and factory workers join the ranks of those who even slightly resemble a middle class. Instead, the poverty trap clutches them tightly. Some have earned the same wages for years. The government subsidizes credit, allowing purchases of appliances and even simple houses. But the credit sinks them into debt they can never hope to repay. Their teenage children, rather than staying in school, rush to factories themselves or join criminal gangs.
Without deep political and social reforms, experts say, the thousands of maquiladora plants that cluster at the U.S. border and around cities in the interior will remain a fixture for decades to come, and Mexico won’t build a middle class that’s big enough to fuel faster economic growth.
Mexico does all it can to ensure that workers don’t unionize, or if they do that they join so-called “protection unions” designed to assure the interests of plant owners and keep wages low."
LCD economics lifts some boats very high, drowns the 99.9% who can't afford them.
#32 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 04:09 PM
Government-run schools? Banks? Nationalized oil industry? Universal health care?
Mexico sounds like a liberal's dream country, Thimbo!
#33 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 07:19 PM
"Government-run schools? Banks? Nationalized oil industry? Universal health care?
Mexico sounds like a liberal's dream country, Thimbo!"
You really want to talk about Mexico's banks. I mean the financial crisis that took place after they were privatized has some useful parallels to the financial crises in Europe and the US, but I don't know if you want to bring them up.
This is yet another episode...
#34 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 17 Jun 2012 at 10:20 PM
Thimbles, you used the word privatized, but a more accurate term would be "corporatized." If govt is involved to the point of controlling the private/public status of a firm, you have some degree of corporatism or fascism (i.e., not the free-market capitalism implied by "privatized"). And tell me you're not still duped by the fantastical DEM/REP divide. *smh*
#35 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Mon 18 Jun 2012 at 05:29 AM
I guess you could take that lesson from the Mexico mess.
Alternatively, you could say, according to the St Louis fed paper on pg 420:
"Mexico had weak property rights institutions to assess the credit worthiness of borrowers and to enforce the contract rights of bankers. Furthermore, he also argues that out of the privatization process emerged a set of institutions that reduced the incentives of bank directors, bank depositors, and bank regulators to enforce the prudent behavior of the newly privatized banks. Some of these institutions would not be reformed until after the 1995 collapse...
Accounting standards were very lax and, in particular, did not require banks to report the entire value of past-due loans as nonperforming, but only the past-due interest payments; banks were allowed to roll over the principal of those loans. Banks were not required to provide consolidated financial reports until 1995, even though at this time they were operating under a universal banking structure. This lack of regulation made it difficult to establish limits on lending within financial groups."
In other words, when you liberalize finance in an environment where institutional oversight is broken, you create a criminogenic environment where bank officers push through high volumes of risky credit since this increases their present compensation and passes off the future cost.
This seems to be a pattern in Japan, Mexico, Europe, and the US.
In Mexico, Clinton and his committee to save the world saved the banks by stopping the country's collapse. In Europe, there is no committee to save the world so we're going to see what happens on that front.
What would be nice is if regulators saw their job as disaster preventative instead of disaster "mopping up". Then, maybe, we wouldn't need to save the world all the time.
#36 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 18 Jun 2012 at 02:10 PM
You can't prevent disasters with regulation.
Any attempt to do so will cost the economy more than the disaster would.
ECON 101.
Adam Smith.
#37 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 18 Jun 2012 at 05:17 PM
Boy, I can't handle the iron clod logic...
Moving on:
On the topic of the pattern, interesting reading from William Black who was riffing off of Jamie Dimon:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/06/dimons-dictum-poorly-underwritten-loans-represent-income-today-and-losses-tomorrow.html#more-2502
"It always surprises me when people assume that all revenue is good and that all expenses are bad. Low-quality revenue iseasy to produce, particularly in financial services. Poorly underwritten loans represent income today and losses tomorrow."
And, on the topic of William Black and Jamie Dimon:
http://blogs.reuters.com/david-cay-johnston/2012/06/11/jp-morgans-2-billion-experiment-with-truthiness/
"Says Black: “There has not been a single investigation by the Justice Department worthy of the word investigation of any of the major entities whose frauds caused the financial crisis.”
Criminal investigations now hardly matter, because most of the frauds took place before 2008. Under the five-year statute of limitations for most federal frauds, governments let the crooks run out the clock. They keep their riches, their reputations, their jobs and, absent real reform and real regulation, plunder on. Both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have let the crooks escape. The challenger who wants to replace President Obama would be even worse. Mitt Romney wants to repeal Dodd-Frank. Unless some determined and creative prosecutor finds a way to pursue the wrongdoers, there will be no justice, just more gambling with taxpayers on the hook to pay off the markers...
The Too Big To Fail banks’ triple play of lobbying, campaign donations and lucrative jobs for family and friends of Washington officials, elected and appointed, blocks real regulation. Budget cuts and rules in fine print have declawed the SEC and the Comptroller while filing the IRS’s audit teeth down to nubs. Washington regulators are looking for problems in all the wrong places, when they are looking at all.
That’s “regulationiness.” The JPMorgan derivatives debacle reveals how the appearance of banking regulation and reform, rather than actual regulation and reform, threatens the financial health of the entire nation. "
#38 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 10:50 PM
Thimbles clips some stupidity from his Liberal du Jour: "Under the five-year statute of limitations for most federal frauds, governments let the crooks run out the clock..."
padikiller: I thought I killed off this liberal stupidity when Ryan threw it up here last year:
There is NO FIVE YEAR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON CRIMINAL FRAUD PROSECUTIONS. PERIOD.
As Ryan conceded in the first of the two corrections I forced in his silly anti-capitalist fairy tale.
You screwy liberals keep repeating this little slice of reality until your lips stop moving and just maybe we'll get somewhere.
This is just a silly, leftist fabrication. That's all. Spin down the rotors on your Chittum 5000 Black Helicopters, guys.
So it's Johnston this time, huh? So who is it next time, Thimbo? Krugman? Or Taibbi?
Reminds me of the "Blues Brothers".... Thimbles has both kinds of sources, country AND western.
#39 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 19 Jun 2012 at 11:24 PM
But they get to keep the money, right? And they get to walk away from the civil cases with the lower bar of proof (which would have provided the fodder for the criminal cases with the higher burden of proof) right? And they get to keep operating in positions of trust, despite their history of fraud, because the justice department has avoided taking action, right?
They've had 5 years since the collapse to put cases together and extract judgements and they haven't. What makes anyone think they're going to do more by 2018 - when both criminal and civil accountability has expired? They've had 5 years and they haven't even goddamn started! They penned an immunity deal for the robo-signing foreclosure scandal on the condition that AG Schniederman was going to get the resources for a task force to prosecute these criminal cases. It's big news when he hires a prosecutor. They are under manned, under funded, under promised which makes sense since it's an election year and you want to protect your donors, not send a task force after them. That's why they have Eric Holder, corporate defense attorney, in charge of the justice department.
There is no lack of evidence, there is only a lack of will. If they couldn't bring civil cases, with the lower burden of proof, before the statute of limitations ran out and while the evidence was fresh, why would you believe that they would get around to constructing criminal cases before 2018?
#40 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 04:45 AM
LOL...
The entire premise of Johnston's story is predicated upon a proven liberal lie..
So move the goalposts again! Start talking about civil cases instead of criminal prosecutions.
Never mind the fact that Johnston is lying his ass off.
Too, too funny!
#41 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 07:09 AM
"Criminal investigations now hardly matter, because most of the frauds took place before 2008. Under the five-year statute of limitations for most federal frauds, governments let the crooks run out the clock. They keep their riches, their reputations, their jobs and, absent real reform and real regulation, plunder on."
The civil cases provide the groundwork for criminal cases and attach much of the penalty for unethical actions because they have a lower bar for proof of culpability.
Did those statues of limitations run out or not?
And will the justice department, which relies on the referrals and work of regulators to bring criminal charges against white collar crime, do the necessary work from scratch now that the statute of limitations for regulatory action have run out?
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/04/geithner-channels-greenspan-and-airbrushes-fraud-out-of-our-crises.html
"The essential prerequisite to these convictions, which represent the greatest success in history against elite white-collar criminals, was that we (the S&L regulators) made over 30,000 criminal referrals. Let me emphasize that again, S&Ls and banks will virtually never make criminal referrals against their controlling officers. Unless the banking regulators make the criminal referrals the FBI will never investigate widespread accounting control frauds...
Similarly, unless banking examiners are “detailed” to the FBI to serve as internal experts for the investigation, the prosecution of elite bank frauds will often fail. “Non-Justice staff expertise provided by IRS agents and regulatory examiners is often needed for successful prosecutions of financial institution fraud”"
Let's exclude the fact that Eric Holder is a corporate criminal defense attorney and that Obama never cleared the justice department of its Bush maggots. Do you think the justice department, with its reduced staff and budgets compared to the S&L scandals, is going to risk taking on the complicated work of prosecuting banks and their fraud in criminal court now that regulators have let them walk from civil cases?
You can't build the Jenga tower without the bottom blocks. The banks have gotten themselves immunity from the recent robo-signing frauds in exchange for an under funded task force on frauds during the height of the crisis for which no prep work has been done (outside reports like the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and the Valukas Report.)
If Schniederman is a miracle worker and manages to secure any prosecutions before the clock ticks 12, then I will happily admit error.
Otherwise, I stand by my contention that the justice department and the regulators, who let the frauds run out their 5 year window without substantial penalty, have sabotaged any criminal prosecution within a ten year window. By design.
FACT.
#42 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 01:42 PM
Thimbles dodges and weaves: "Otherwise, I stand by my contention that the justice department and the regulators, who let the frauds run out their 5 year window without substantial penalty, have sabotaged any criminal prosecution within a ten year window. By design."
padikiller responds: Yeah, Thimbo, but we're not dealing with your "contention" here, pal.
We're dealing with Johnston's LIE.
Johnston regurgitated the standard liberal LIE that there is a 5 year statute of limitations on criminal prosecutions, and this simply FALSE.
PERIOD.
You can (and frequently do) "contend" any fantastic thing you want. You can fire up the turbines of your Chittum 5000 Black Helicopters into Whisper Mode and attack every windmill in Chittumland.
But here in Realityville... The TRUTH is that THERE IS NO FIVE YEAR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON CRIMINAL PROSECUTIONS.
That's just how it is!
#43 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 10:28 PM
I bolded the qualifier, so what is it? A reading issue or a reading comprehension issue?
#44 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 20 Jun 2012 at 10:43 PM
If you're asking me, I say you have neither a reading issue, nor a reading comprehension issue.
I think you are simply narrow-minded and beholden to the small set of liberal mouthpieces you worship and are therefore unwilling to acknowledge the undeniable fact that one of them is lying to make his point.
#45 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Thu 21 Jun 2012 at 06:57 AM
"If you're asking me, I say you have neither a reading issue, nor a reading comprehension issue."
Wow. Didn't know lawyers could use this argument.
We're looking at the workings of a superior mind, folks.
#46 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 21 Jun 2012 at 01:10 PM