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If you could find Bloomberg TV on your dial, you may have caught Newt Gingrich's attacks on Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. In his warped version of reality, the global financial meltdown wasn't about stock speculators, fraudulent rating agencies actions, corruption of the mortgage industry, CDO's and the AIG Asset Management insurance scheme that and the rest of the crooks that collapsed the markets. Nope, in the last GOP presidential debate on Oct 11, he blames all their problems on two guys named Dodd and Frank and their usual meme about government regulations, :
"If you want to put people in jail, you ought to start with Barney Frank, Chris Dodd," Gingrich said, responding to a questioning about why Wall Street executives weren't arrested after the financial crisis.
Barney released a quote after the debate:
"As to the facts, the Republicans -- part of the time under Newt Gingrich -- ran Congress from 1995 until 2006, the period during which the financial crisis began and then rose to disastrous proportions. Chris Dodd and I were in the minority during that time, and in fact no remedial action was taken by Congress until we became chairmen of our respective committees in 2007 and 2008." "Apparently, Newt Gingrich -- who considers himself one of the intellectual leaders of the free world -- is so embarrassed by the fact that he is running behind Michele Bachmann in Republican polls that it has increased his already well-developed propensity to utter outlandish things."
Barney joined Chris Matthews and eviscerated Newt for almost ten straight minutes in response to Mr. Tiffany's pompous remarks with both barrels blazing.
Matthews: Well that was a portrait of malevolence, is this libel...I don't know what to make of it.
Frank: Well, you have to understand, when you think you are the intellectual leader of the free world and you find yourself struggling to pass Michele Bachmann in a poll in Iowa (laughs in background) it is unsettling. I understand that the poor man isn't getting his due. But what was particularly extraordinary was he was talking about a period of time when he was in charge, not me. The run up to this crisis, this crisis began to bubble over in 2007-008, the Republicans controlled the Congress from 1995-2006, Newt himself was Speaker for four years, did nothing about the problems he accuses me and Chris of causing. And then it was Tom Delay and so apparently, and I'm regretful for this. Apparently I had some secret influence over the Republican leadership that I never knew about about because if I had I would have told them not to impeach President Clinton. I would have told them not to go to war in Iraq I would have told Delay not to go on the dance show. There are a lot of things I would have done.
The second thing he is objecting to is the bill we passed. They don't like an independent consumer protection agency and the work Elizabeth Warren did. They don't want derivatives to be regulated. I, I, incredibly they want to go back to the situation where AIG was able to get itself into all this trouble. The don't want a fiduciary responsibility on people who advise investors....
