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O’Reilly and Fannie Mae

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This is pretty funny. O’Reilly is so obsessed with trying to blame everyone that he goes freaking ballistic when he finds out there’s nothing about Fannie Mae he can pin on Barney Frank, so instead he tries to take another route that has nothing to do with regulation and just blame Frank for supposedly encouraging people to buy their stock even though he specifically said it was a bad investment.

Here’s what O’ Reilly said a couple of days ago:

“Most talk radio is conservative dominated ideologues, or kool-aid drinking idiots. Idiots. Screaming at you “This is socialism, this is this this is that””It’s Clintons fault, it’s Clinton’s fault.” It’s Clinton’s fault? Clinton hasn’t been in office in 8 years.

It’s Bush’s fault, it happened on Bush’s watch. He could’ve prevented this. He could’ve gone easily and said Merrill Lynch is dealing in bad paper he could’ve said that.Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac they’re dealing in bad paper, so you the investor, don’t invest in those companies. You think they would’ve continued to deal in bad paper? No they would not!

But let’s get back to this talk radio stuff. These idiots are misleading you they’re lying to you They’re rich, these guys, Big cigars, all of that! Private jets, “Oh yeah, my private jet!”And they’re saying “No bailout, no no uh uh no way”Hey! You’re going to get it, not them. That foreign investment pulls out, we are toast. And they’ll pull out if that bailout doesn’t happen. Are you getting the message here? Walk away from these liars, these right wing liars. Walk away from them, they’re not looking out for you!

I don’t even want to talk about the far left Barney Frank? Disgusting! Pointing fingers? It’s you you big fat toad, YOU!Frank!You!Dodd, sittin’ there [incomprehensible impression of Dodd] It’s you Dodd, you! You knew! I swear to god, if they were in this room right now, I would hit them. Dodd and FrankThe house finance and senate finance. They knew!

Don’t point a finger at anybody, I’ll break that finger off! So you got corruption on the right, and corruption on the left. And who gets it? You get it, you, the hardworking person
The next politician that gets up their and points a finger, I’m go after them myself Shut up! Fix it! These are people’s livesI got enough money in the bank. Unless a bank fails, I’m fine. But you’re probably not fine. I’m lucky.

I’m tired of these charlatans on both sides. Lying to you, because they’re ideological kool-aid drinkers or corrupt toadsAnd I’m talkin to you Barney FrankWho’s the guy who was saying, “If you don’t lend money to poor people you’re a bigot”Who was saying that barney, WHO?![pause] I gotta take a break.”

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Bill has gone way too far in the blame game in my opinion. Does he really think Bush saw this coming? Bush is an idiot. I don’t even think Cheney saw this coming. No one did, except the guys who ran the housing prices high and then got out. I’m sure they knew what they were doing. But other than that, it’s the philosophy of deregulation that is to blame rather than people. But of course Conservatives don’t want to hear that, so they’ll just blame the government and say a badly-run Republican government only proves the Conservative/Neo-Con philosophy has been right all along. This is the response he got from conservative radio host Mark Levin:

“And I’m not talking to some of you backbenchers, and you know who I mean,” said Levin. “These blowhards. You get arrogant, stupid people who get paid a lot of money to be on radio and TV to be arrogant and stupid. And one of them, one of them is on the Fox News Channel, my favorite cable channel. And he has a fledgling radio show that has no ratings, and he’ll be off radio soon because he’s a failure. It’s the non-factor: Bill O’Reilly.

“And he is no conservative,” said Levin. “He’s another mainstream, moron, phony journalist. That’s what he is. And, oh, jealous like hell of Rush Limbaugh. Did you notice that? The cigar and the airplane? Let me tell you something else, jerk. You can’t hold a candle to him.” Your ratings suck.”

“You paid more in hush money for your little phone sex than I’ve ever earned.”

A veteran T.V. journalist actually lost his job for pointing out O’Reilly’s phone sex case to those awarding O’Reilly an Emmy:

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/27/barry-nolan/

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Congressman Frank was asked about Freddie and Fannie on July 14, 2008:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/10/03/world-war-iii-barney-frank-vs-bill-oreilly/#more-33396

REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. They’re not the best investments these days from the long-term standpoint going back. I think they are in good shape going forward.

They’re in a housing market. I do think their prospects going forward are very solid. And in fact, we’re going to do some things that are going to improve them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O’REILLY: Well, obviously, that statement turned out not to be true.

Joining us now from Washington is Congressman Frank. And we appreciate you coming in, being a standup guy, but shouldn’t everybody in the country be angry with you right now?

FRANK: No. You’ve misrepresented this consistently. I became chairman of the committee on January 31st, 2007. Less than two months later, I did what the Republicans hadn’t been able to do in 12 years — get through the committee a very tough regulatory bill. And it passed the House in May.

I’ve always felt two things about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that they had an important role to play, but that the regulations should be improved.

Now from 1995 to 2006, when the Republicans controlled Congress and we were in the minority, we couldn’t get that done. Although in 2005, Mike Oxley, of Sarbanes-Oxley fame, a pretty tough guy on regulation, did try to put a bill through to regulate Fannie Mae. I worked with him on it. As he told The Financial Times, he thought ideological rigidity in the Bush administration stopped that.

But the basic point is that the first time I had any real authority over this was January of 2007. And within two months, we had passed the bill that regulated.

O’REILLY: OK. And that’s true, all of that is true.

FRANK: And then also, one other point: The Senate was dragging its feet, as often happens. And in January of 2008, I asked Secretary Paulson to put in the stimulus bill. So, the earliest chance I got to put tough regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we did it.

O’REILLY: All right, that’s swell. But you still went out in July and said everything was great. And off that, a lot of people bought stock and lost everything they had.

FRANK: Oh, no.

O’REILLY: And — yes, oh yes. Oh, yes.

FRANK: I said it wasn’t a good investment. Please stop yelling.

O’REILLY: Don’t give me any of that, we just heard the words. What are you…

FRANK: That’s wrong.

O’REILLY: You didn’t say that? You want me to play it again for you?

FRANK: You didn’t listen to it.

O’REILLY: No, I listened to every word you said. And I have the transcript right here.

FRANK: No, and I said it wasn’t a good investment.

O’REILLY: Yes, you said going forward, we’re going to be swell.

FRANK: No, I didn’t say swell. Excuse me, Bill.

O’REILLY: Look, from August ‘07 to August ‘08.

FRANK: Excuse me, Bill.

O’REILLY: Don’t — look, stop the B.S. here. Stop the crap! From August ‘07 to August ‘08…

FRANK: You know, here’s the problem going on your show…

O’REILLY: …under your tutelage, this industry…

FRANK: Here is the problem going on your show.

O’REILLY: …declined 90 percent. 90 percent.

FRANK: Yes, but…

O’REILLY: Oh, none of this was your fault! Oh, no. People lost millions of dollars. It wasn’t your fault. Come on, you coward! Say the truth.

FRANK: What do you mean coward?

O’REILLY: You’re a coward. You blame everybody else. You’re a coward.

FRANK: Bill, here’s the problem with going on your show. You start ranting. And the only way to respond is almost to look as boorish as you. But here’s the facts. I specifically said in the quote you just played that I didn’t think it was a good investment. I wasn’t telling anybody to buy stock. I said it wasn’t a good investment.

Secondly, I wasn’t presiding idly over this. I was trying to get the regulations adopted. We got them adopted in May.

O’REILLY: Look, bottom line is you’re there two years. Bottom line is stock drops 90 percent.

FRANK: Yes.

O’REILLY: In any private industry, you’re out.

FRANK: We couldn’t get…

O’REILLY: In any private concern, you’re out on your butt. But not here in the federal government.

You can come in and make every excuse in the world.

FRANK: I’m not making excuses.

O’REILLY: Blame everybody else in the world and then call me boorish.

FRANK: I’m not going to be bullied by your ranting. You can rant all you want, you’re not going to shut me up! The problem was that we passed in 1994, in fact.

O’REILLY: Now we’re back to 1994. This is bull. This is why Americans don’t trust the government.

FRANK: No, this is why your stupidity gets in the way of rational discussion.

The fact is it was 1994 that we passed a bill to tell the Fed to stop the subprime lending. We tried to get them to do it. The first time we were in power again in 2007, we passed the bill to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

So during the two years I was there…

O’REILLY: Look, Congressman, you tried to put a happy face on this in July.

FRANK: I’m not putting a happy face on anything.

O’REILLY: You tried to — and now you won’t take the.

FRANK: No.

O’REILLY: Look, at least Cox is man enough.

FRANK: I said….

O’REILLY: At least Cox is man enough to say he screwed up. You’re not.

FRANK: Hey, Bill. This manliness stuff is very unbecoming from you. I don’t see any…

O’REILLY: Cox is man enough to say he screwed up. You’re not.

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: You think toughness is yelling and ranting and trying to bully. It’s not going to work with me. The fact is in the very quote you played, I said it’s not a good investment. I tried to get the regulations adopted.

O’REILLY: You said going forward, it’s going to be swell. And people under that bought stock in that, thought it was a good investment.

FRANK: I didn’t say swell. I didn’t say swell. No, I said in fact in that quote that you played and didn’t listen to because you’re busy ranting that it’s not a good investment. I said that at the time. I did think we were going to improve things going forward. Yes, we had some things that needed improvement.

O’REILLY: All right, you want to — here, let me read you your quote here. OK? OK? “I do think the prospects going forward are very solid.”

FRANK: But that’s not the part about it not being a good investment.

O’REILLY: Now, people bought stock when you said that.

FRANK: You are distorting it. Bill, you’re lying by your words.

O’REILLY: This is what you said.

FRANK: What about the part where…

O’REILLY: Not lying. And I played it and I read it.

FRANK: What about the part where I said it wasn’t a good investment?

O’REILLY: You said it’s not the best right now, but going forward this is going to be solid.

FRANK: Right…

O’REILLY: People lost millions.

FRANK: I didn’t say solid, I didn’t say swell. You distort consistently. And you think ranting and raving…

O’REILLY: All right.

FRANK: …you don’t want to talk about 1994, like no history is relevant. The fact is that you had a problem with an administration — conservative.

(CROSSTALK)

O’REILLY: I know, it’s all the conservatives, it’s all the Republicans and not you.

FRANK: Oh, come on.

O’REILLY: None on you. That’s a joke.

FRANK: You won’t have a rational discussion.

O’REILLY: That’s a joke.

FRANK: The joke is to think I could have a rational discussion with you. You’re ranting.

O’REILLY: No, the joke is both parties are at fault, as I stated. But one guy Cox says yes, I screwed up.

FRANK: That’s a totally different issue.

O’REILLY: And one guy Frank says it’s everybody else’s fault.

FRANK: No, I didn’t say it was everybody else’s fault.

O’REILLY: It’s your fault.

FRANK: You are the most — you don’t listen at all, or maybe you are listening or you’re too dumb to understand.

O’REILLY: I am too dumb, Congressman.

FRANK: The fact is that in — yes.

O’REILLY: No, you hit it, I’m too dumb. You’re the brilliant guy.

FRANK: In 2007.

O’REILLY: You’re the brilliant guy who presided over the biggest financial collapse in federal history.

FRANK: Oh, no, no, no.

O’REILLY: So you’re the — I’m the dumb guy. You’re the brilliant guy.

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: Under the Bush administration…

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: And the fact is…

O’REILLY: Congressman, thanks very much. We got to run.

Deregulation and the Financial Crisis

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Let me start off by saying that a couple of months ago, Rush Limbaugh said he was “dreaming” of a race riot. He was running his “Operation Chaos” platform to get Hillary elected in hopes that it would anger the blacks, cause them to riot and kill a bunch of people, and hopefully that would cause Obama to lose the election. Republicans have always said “Trust the free market” and now the “free market” has grabbed the country by the throat and demanded $700 billion or watch the country disintegrate. What would we do if a bunch of minorities took over the country and demanded that kind of money? We’d probably send in the riot troops. But these hijackers are rich, and rich people can never be blamed for anything, so they’re trying to convince people like you that, like all problems, it was all caused by Clinton and the blacks and the Mexicans.

Conservatives have been backstabbed by their friends on Wall Street and are being forced to eat their own heart or watch civilization crumble. People like Bill O’Reilly can do it, beacause they aren’t hard-core ideologues. But everyone else on Fox News and the radio are against it because that would mean they’d have to admit that you can’t run a country on an ideology of “regulation is always bad” and “government spending is always bad.” The problem is, they don’t have any plan. They just say do nothing, “let Wall Street burn”, and that’s stupid. Conservatives have made their entire careers out of convincing us that prosperity on Wall Street equals prosperity at home (which of course is not true) and now they want you to believe there’s absolutely no connection at all, and the death of Wall Street won’t carry significant aftershocks to Main Street. This is absolutely delusional. Not only will it have devastating effects on other Americans, it’s going to have devastating effects *on the entire world*. To pretend there is no problem (like Republicans have been doing for the past 3 months!!!) and do nothing would probably be the most childish, irresponsible thing the American congress has done in 100 years. At this point, doing anything, even passing a fake bill that did very little, would be helpful in trying to regain foreign confidence in the market, which is absolutely mandatory in order to stop the world economy from going down the drain.

Rush Limbaugh, like the rest of the conservatives, is now acting like Bush and his guys are actually Democrats and its McCain (who course they all hate) who are going to come in and fix things. The idea seems to be that Bush wasn’t right-wing enough (!) and that McCain will be better than him because he’s…. more left-wing on a few minor issues? So what Rush is saying is that the Democrats were for the “Paulson Plan.” Of course, neither side wanted the “Paulson Plan” of making Paulson Supreme Emperor of Unprecedented Powers. The plan that the House Republicans killed was a different plan that called for putting up about half the money. I would rather see a plan that involved putting liquidity into the market without the government purchasing the toxic loans.

Now let’s go to the task of dismissing these lies about the CRA and ACORN:

“– The Community Reinvestment Act caused financial institutions to lend to people who weren’t credit worthy. This is crap. The CRA was signed into law in 1977 — over 20 years before the current crisis. The second problem with this theory is the CRA only applies to banks and thrifts. Most of the mortgage lending during the last boom came from — mortgage lenders who aren’t regulated by CRA.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/whos-to-blame-for-the-mes_b_130044.html

Here’s an article named “ACORN Issue Fueling Bailout Opposition”:

“The draft bill includes a left-wing giveaway that would force taxpayers to bankroll a slush fund for a discredited ally of the Democratic Party,” reads one leadership alert. “At issue is ACORN, an organization fraught with controversy for, among other scandals, its fraudulent voter registration activities on behalf of Democratic candidates. Rather than returning any profits made in the long-term from the economic rescue package, Democrats want to first reward their radical allies at ACORN for their (often illegal) help in getting Democrats elected to office.”

In the end, how much of the bailout’s potential profits are earmarked for ACORN? “None. Absolutely none. All funds would go to state and local governments,” said Steven Adamske, spokesman for Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Financial Services Committee and a lead negotiator.”

One of the prinicipal causes in my opinion is that we’ve become corporate socialists. This Administration wants to “capitalize” all the profits of Big Business so that the money stays a the top and “socialize” the risks and losses, so that the middle class picks up the bill for the rich’s mistakes as well. This has caused a liquidity crisis in the middle class which has helped cause all the foreclosures:

“While the average American continues to suffer due to oligarchical policies of the Bush White House that has resulted in steady erosion of worker earnings; higher unemployment; more expensive medical care; higher gas and food prices – the reckless and fiscally irresponsible elitist continue to be bailed out. This White House exerts a free trade policy that advocates that market forces should rule. This was their rational for the absence of homeowner assistance in the housing crisis. Yet when these market forces are exercised against a favored company the White House steps in and again socializes the risk – placing it squarely on the back of the suffering taxpayer……

All of the above sounds quite dire, but most world experts believe our system is even worse! Many believe that the Tier III write-offs required is greater than $2 trillion dollars versus the $1 trillion dollar bandied by the government and Wall Street firms. If this number is valid and given that we have only written down about $350 billion, then we have a much deeper crisis than anyone envisioned. Last year the estimate to rid American companies of the toxic assets was $100 billion. By late spring this year the number had grown to $500 billion; and, now even the conservative estimates are $1 trillion dollars. However, if international experts are right then it is double that figure.

What does it mean to Americans? It means that the Bush Legacy will include a debt of well over $2,000,000 per household in this country and a wealth curve that is skewed greatly. Per the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances the top 5% owns over 59% of all U.S. wealth; the lowest 20% own zero; and, the middle own the balance of 41%. This is the most skewed wealth distribution curve we have experienced since 1929. The trend since 1929 has been a normalized curve that was shaped more along a standard bell curve, which means we maintained a strong middle-class. What has the Bush Administration economic policies really accomplished? It has managed to destroy the class of citizens that has made this country great and left us a new economic system, the American Socialized Capitalism that protects the wealthy.”

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/09/29/bluff-called

From Justin Fox, regarding House Republicans’ plan:

>…that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to “encourag[e] corporations to sell unwanted assets.” But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn’t be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

And here’s a FactCheck.Org article titled: “Who Caused the Economic Crisis? MoveOn.org blames McCain advisers. He blames Obama and Democrats in Congress. Both are wrong.” Notice that it’s MoveOn.org and McCain, *not Obama* who is doing the lying here. At the bottom of the article it says:

So who is to blame? There’s plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn’t fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn’t do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of “layered irresponsibility … with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role.” Here’s a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:

* The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.

* Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.

* Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.

* Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.

* The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

* Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.

* Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate mortgages.

* Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.

* The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.

* An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.

* Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult.

http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/who_caused_the_economic_crisis.html

Regarding the crisis, McCain accused Obama of “phoning it in”. Looks like this was true:

>Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, a supporter of the bill, made calls to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who publicly credited him with changing their minds.

>Rep. Elijah Cummings and Donna Edwards, both Maryland Democrats, were among them. They said Obama had pledged if he wins the White House that he would help homeowners facing foreclosure on their mortgages. He also pledged to support changes in the bankruptcy law to make it less burdensome on consumers.

>”It’s not too often you get the future president telling you that his priority matches your priority,” said Cummings.

>Obama’s rival, Sen. John McCain, who announced a brief suspension in his campaign more than a week ago to try and help solve the financial crisis, made calls to Republicans. His impact was not immediately clear.

>Republican Rep. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, who said she was switching her vote to favor the measure, said of McCain: “They told me he was going to call me. He didn’t.”

>Looking ahead to election day, she added, “I may lose this race over this vote, but that’s OK with me. This is the right vote for the country.”

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/03/national/main4497551.shtml

Putting Politics Ahead of Country

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Ok, so McCain “suspended his campaign”, consisting of moving his appearance on David Letterman to a piece with Katie Couric. (McCain insiders say they are looking for another way to suspend the campaign; William Kristol has also called for a second suspension.) The rest of his campaign continued attacking Obama and McCain very slowly made it back to Washington to “lead” on the crisis even though he admitted he had not read the 3-page report on the crisis even after several days. Before he got there, we heard word that they discussions were going good, but soon after McCain got there, House Republicans rebelled. We know that Obama talked during the meeting and McCain didn’t. House Republicans tried to force Democrats to accept the elimination of the capital gains tax (which of course has nothing to do with the crisis) or watch the economy go into a downward spiral, which is pretty much like the cops joining the rioters they’re supposed to bring down and adding in their own demands. So the deal failed. The Dow fell about 780 points and the S&P dropped 8% (as a side note, we all know Phil “America are whiners” Gramm, but McCain’s other economist is Kevin Hassett, who wrote DOW 36,000 right before the Dot Com bubble burst). Now Republicans are blaming the failed vote on Nancy Pelosi giving a speech in which she said the problem was due to a failed economic philosophy of “anything goes” and McCain is blaming Obama and the Democrats for “putting politics ahead of country.”

Noah Millman writes:

> There are lots and lots of reasons not to like this bill. But most of those reasons are Democratic talking points. The GOP alternative proposal was borderline illiterate.

> I’m writing this in haste, without a lot of reflection. But the whole way this has played out has been something of a watershed moment for me. There is only one party in Congress that thinks we are in a financial crisis, only one party in Congress with a functioning leadership.

http://theamericanscene.com/2008/09/29/bluff-called

Megan McArdle writes:

> A journalist friend who spends way more time on politics than I do suggests that if the Democrats cave and include a capital gains tax, it will probably pass–but puts the odds of the Democrats caving at slim to none, since they can now blame any resulting crash on the Republicans.

> I didn’t think it was possible to be more disgusted with politicians than I usually am, but I find it impossible to express the seething contempt that I feel at this kind of opportunism. I don’t mind when they screw with the normal operation of the economy for venal personal gain. But risking a recession in order to get a cut in the capital gains tax? Letting it tank because you can always blame it on the Republicans?

http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/09/so_what_happens_now.php

From Justin Fox, regarding House Republicans’ plan:

>…that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to “encourag[e] corporations to sell unwanted assets.” But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn’t be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

Bail Out Graph

The Lies of Palin

“Palin could not have asked her girls for permission to accept McCain’s veep offer if she also says she accepted the offer unblinkingly and right away. Palin did fire a police chief even as she insisted to a reporter she hadn’t. She did violate the confidential medical records of Mike Wooten. She hasn’t met with any trade missions from Russia. She does not have any gay friends that anyone can find. She did not oppose the Bridge to Nowhere. She did not sell that plane on eBay. Her Teleprompter did not fail in her convention speech. Alaska’s state scientists did not conclude that polar bears were in no danger. She did deny publicly that humans had anything to do with climate change.

“Alaska does not provide “nearly 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy,” as she claimed. The gas pipeline she touts as her major “mission accomplished” has not broken ground and may never do so. She did not take a pay-cut as mayor of Wasilla. And on and on. Anyone with Google can check all of these out. Including reporters.”

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-odd-lies–5.html