This is about the state of the real estate market in Covington, Georgia… what caused the state of affairs we find ourselves in today. It’s also a little about politics. It’s also about our main stream media. But mostly it’s 
about honesty.
I’ve written before that, from my perspective, the root cause of our problems with today’s depressed real estate market – and, indeed, with the current economic condition in our country – is the federal government’s misplaced premise that everyone in the United States should be able to own a home, and our mainstream medias’ crusade to reinforce and perpetuate that position.
The current real estate crisis didn’t just spring up from nowhere. It is the direct result of a Clinton administration decision in the late ‘90s to loosen lending rules to make mortgage loans more accessible to America’s poor and minority groups so that everyone could purchase a home. And, to that purpose, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve even the riskiest of loans to enhance the American Dream. It was a gravy-train wreck waiting to happen.
Some officials could see the wreck coming. Alan Greenspan (although he, by his own admission, missed some of the signs) warned of it, as did President Bush’s Treasury Secretary, as did his Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. They tried repeatedly to tighten the rules on Fannie and Freddie. But the other party blocked every attempt to do so, and continued to loosen them even further.
Congressman Barney Frank (Dem.) and Senator Christopher Dodd (Dem.), denying the existence of any problems at all, led the movement to refuse the Bush administration’s requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie and Freddie right up until the sub-prime mortgage market imploded. This is what brought us to the place where the only way to prop up our economy was with a $700 billion bailout.
This is where the “honesty” of our mainstream print and broadcast media comes in….
Shouldn’t our media be telling us the truth about how we got to this point and who put the prosperity of all 
Americans - and a large part of the world – at risk? Isn’t the job of the media to be the watchdog of truth, to do whatever it takes to discover it and to report it to the American people because the public has the right to know?
That’s what they taught me in the ‘80s when I was getting my journalism degree.
But, when Nancy Pelosi, with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd by her side, recently accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the housing and economic crisis, the media criticized Republicans who took offense at her misrepresentation and voted against the bailout.
When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing –even urging - them to make irresponsible loans, wasn’t there a story there?
When Fannie Mae CEO Fred Raines was consulted on housing by the Obama campaign after he was fired from his $90 million job for incompetence, wasn’t there a story there?
What happened to responsible, honest journalism after “All The President’s Men”? Honest people… honest media is free from deception. They are upright in their character. They diligently discover and insist on reporting the truth in spite of the probable consequences or effect on their preferred candidate. That’s how 
they earn our trust.
We’re now in a crisis begun during the Clinton administration and perpetuated by a Democratic Congress. Yet the mainstream media continues to act like the PR agency for the Democratic Party, trying to convince us that the evil President Bush caused all our problems. Unfortunately, with a lot of people, they’re doing a pretty good job at it. But, I don’t trust them!
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