Pointing the Finger at the White House

Michael Abramowitz writes in The Washington Post about what a long way it is from Bush's frequent bragging "about the government's role in increasing homeownership rates and in decreasing government regulation of the housing market. . . .

"In 2004, for example, Bush told a group of carpenters in Phoenix that 'the housing industry is booming, which means more people own their home. And that's positive.'

"'We want more people owning their own home. There's nothing like saying this home is my home,' Bush said, adding: 'I've called on private-sector mortgage banks and banks to be more aggressive about lending money to first-time home buyers. And the response has been really good.'

"During an October 2004 speech to the National Association of Home Builders, Bush talked about his administration's record on encouraging homeownership -- including a proposal to allow first-time buyers to make no down payment. He cast the effort as part of an 'ownership society' that would also include health-care and retirement accounts."

And so on.

A Pattern

The Los Angeles Times editorial board writes: "As the Bush administration attempts to stabilize the nation's economy, we are witness to the final chapter of a period of perverse and dishonest leadership that has used its own crises to justify the expansion of its own power. This was a president who came to office on promises of modesty -- who championed a 'humble nation,' scorned nation building and promised a more limited role for government in the lives of its citizens. Then he presided over a six-year attempt to tear down and rebuild the nations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and now has embarked on the most profound expansion of the federal government's role in the private economy since the Depression.

"In both cases, the pattern is the same. Ineptitude led to crisis; crisis then became the argument for the radical expansion of executive power. The administration insisted that it exercise its new authority with a minimum of scrutiny by Congress, the courts or the public. . . .

"These troubles are about more than a president who is unfaithful to his word. Bush has transformed the balance of power in our government. We are seeing the erection of an imperial presidency, immune from oversight when it fights terrorists and when it rescues banks."

Bush the Socialist?

Jacob Heilbrunn writes in a New York Times opinion piece: "Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist and former chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers (under Bill Clinton), put it most bluntly: 'If this isn't socialism,' he recently said of the bailout package, 'then I don't know what is.' . . .

"To Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of 'Leviathan on the Right,' Mr. Bush is not a conservative by any definition. 'Anybody would be more restrained than Bush,' Mr. Tanner said. 'Bill Clinton was a more conservative president than Bush' because Mr. Clinton 'balanced the budget.'

"Mr. Bush's thinking, it appears, is rooted in a rival conservative vision. In this view, big government is here to stay and the job of conservatives is to convert it to the proper uses."

John D. McKinnon writes in the Wall Street Journal: "President George W. Bush's $700 billion rescue plan for financial markets is prompting widespread soul-searching within the conservative movement. . . .