ThrowTheBumsOut.org

As far as I know, it doesn’t exist yet, but why doesn’t some enterprising soul–a “community organizer” of a sort different what what we’ve seen recently–get it going. “Throw the Bums Out dot Org”: it has a certain ring to it, no? Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit points to a Rasmussen poll showing that 59 percent would vote to replace the entire Congress.

Quoth Reynolds: “Count me among them.”

Me, too.

And that 59 percent figure is about to zoom higher as the true dimensions of our Congress-enabled financial crisis become clearer.

As late as 2003, Congressman Barney Frank, Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, was telling the American people that

“These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Barney Frank. The Community Reinvestment Act. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. “Affordable Housing.” What does it all mean? Let me repeat a few facts assembled by Thomas Sowell–I quoted them yesterday, but they bear repeating:

Fact Number One: It was liberal Democrats, led by Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, who for years– including the present year– denied that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taking big risks that could lead to a financial crisis.

It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was liberal Democrats, again led by Dodd and Frank, who for years pushed for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to go even further in promoting subprime mortgage loans, which are at the heart of today’s financial crisis.

Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush’s Secretary of the Treasury, five years ago. [Don’t believe it? Read this.]

Yet, today, what are we hearing? That it was the Bush administration “right-wing ideology” of “de-regulation” that set the stage for the financial crisis.

The bottom line?

• The mortgage market as an instrument of socialist economic redress, i.e., the redistribution of wealth come hell or high water.
• Irresponsible lending as the law of the land, the people and their wishes be damned.

The distant rumble you hear is the sound of burgeoning democratic anger preparing to expel the smirking, incompetent toadies who orchestrated and presided over this catastrophe. Will it achieve critical mass by November 4? It is too early to say. But the longer the rumble proceeds without action, the angrier the people will be.