Jeff Matthews posted this…

Jeff Matthews posted this.  You just can't make this stuff up.

Nothing to Fear but Irresponsible Words

This
great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will
prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only
thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified
terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

—FDR Inaugural Address

We
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills; we shall never surrender…

—Winston Churchill

This sucker could go down.

—George Bush

It
is widely reported that in the search for somebody to blame for the
subprime crisis, some of the same Wall Street firms that foisted the
subprime bubble on a willing world have pointed their fingers at rumors
and the people who might spread them.

We do not argue one bit
that the deliberate spreading of false rumors is potentially dangerous
to real companies in a tight credit environment.

It most certainly is.

Yet
we wonder how any spoken words could possibly have been more dangerous
to the financial system than our own president’s comments to members of
Congress, as reported in the weekend Wall Street Journal’s excellent inside view of the White House bailout negotiations:

Mr.
Bush allowed everyone to vent their frustrations. Finally, he pointed
out that both sides still agreed on the need to get the bill done. He
added that "if we don't loosen up some money into the system, this
sucker could go down," a repeat of the warning in his prime-time speech
on Wednesday night that a financial panic is a real risk.

The President’s unfortunate choice of words—"this sucker could go down"—carry
the same deer-in-headlights quality as his televised speech to the
American people last week, in which he used the word “panic,” as we
recall. At a minimum, it makes you nervous; at a maximum, it makes you
want to throw up first and sell everything second.

What happened to the heroic, forward-looking rhetoric great leaders are supposed to provide in times of crisis?

FDR gave us “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Churchill gave us “We shall fight on the beaches.”

George Bush cruises in with “This sucker could go down.”

We wonder: has a more irresponsible sentence been uttered, by anyone, during this entire crisis?

Comments (Archived):

  1. None

    You libs are so predictable. The hypocrisy from the left is absolutely sickening. If you want to know why we are here now, other than liberal ideology, here you go Jeff:http://www.youtube.com/watc… Does anyone recognize any of these faces today?Oh, by the way, Churchill also said, and I quote: “if you’re not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you’re not a conservative at forty you have no brain.”DRILL, DRILL, DRILL

  2. Joshua Morningside

    Jeff Matthews is dishonest. His blog style is to take a comment out of context and recontextualize it to make the speaker/writer look like an idiot or a liar or whatever. Comparing W’s private comments in a closed door meeting to the great motivational speeches of FDR or Churchill in times of crisis is just more of the same dishonest trick.I think W is the worst president since his great great great great grandfather Franklin Pierce but Jeff Matthews point is just useless, a lie. Par for the course for Matthews.