The incurious rush to save mortgages

Journalism grows slack when it fails to ask questions. . .Its curiosity is like sex – use it or lose it.

What’s the point of journalism, if not to ask questions?
The Media delved into Gov. Sarah Palin’s Alaskan past. Her Republican presidential running mate complained about the background check. And that political tactic now seems stronger than journalistic curiosity.
The reportage wanes as the Palin phenomenon waxes stronger.
Reporters also seem to have used up their quota of inquiry on politics just when we need answers about economic issues..
They need to ask if Americans really want Uncle Sam as a landlord.
The case for Treasury takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sure seems compelling.
The Federal National Mortgage Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation are a mess. Heads had to roll along with any other cliché that would clean up the government-sponsored secondary home mortgage market.
We don’t yet know for sure if the debacle in the total pubic and private securitized loan market will bring down the American economy.
So the government had to reform the two federally backed agencies that own half the mortgages in the nation.
But insuring the market is different from owning it.
We have just socialized mortgages in this country.
And the Press is asking fewer questions than about The Bridge to Nowhere that connects falsehood with Gov. Palin’s claim to reform public works.
For decades we’ve resisted socialized medicine.
Even now Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate, campaigns against letting a federal bureaucrat stand between my doctor and me.
So why would I want a government clerk overseeing where I lay me down to sleep?
That’s neither a conservative nor a liberal question. It’s something sensible for The Press to ask as surrogate for ordinary, everyday folk.
Yes. Something had to be done about Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac. And quick.
The swift and sure government action, however, has the look of forever about it.
Why isn’t there a sunset provision built into the takeover? Then the government could fix the problem and get out of the mortgage business, returning it to private or quasi-private enterprise.
But the business pages and Wall Street programs on TV aren’t asking that question.
Journalism grows slack when it fails to ask questions.
Its curiosity is like sex – use it or lose it.

Words can be a poor path to remembrance

I’m afraid I don’t know what point the military officer was trying to make.

Symbols communicate better then words.
The barrel-down M-16 topped with helmet and dangling dog tags has become the universal soldier’s memorial.
Add GI boots and a fireman’s helmet and a peace officer’s Smokey Bear hat. You’ve created the War on Terror altar saluted and prayed over and flag-decorated all over the land on Sept. 11
The display is affecting.
I went to a ceremony on a college campus where the ROTC brigade prepared the parade field. So effective were the symbols, silence would have been better than the words that were spoken.
The cadet commander read remarks badly in need of a copyeditor. I wanted to tell him it’s okay for student soldiers to use good grammar.
Then spoke the Army lieutenant colonel who is professor of military science. Nestled among the platitudes was a statement that no foreign power had occupied American soil.
He must not have known about the War of 1812 – its Battle of New Orleans. . . the burning of the White House. . .Dolley Madison.
Francis Scott Key wrote one of our enduring symbols during that war, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The anthem describes the British naval bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor.
I’d be inclined to include Pancho Villa’s Mexican incursion in the American Southwest as an invasion. Our Gen. John J. “Blackjack” Pershing thought so, sharpening his troops before World War I.
The colonel might have recalled the Japanese invasion of the Aleutian Islands in our era’s World War II.
Or German U-boat forays into our territorial waters.
And Pearl Harbor wasn’t an occupation but might as well have been.
Like our 9/11 it was nation changing.
I’m afraid I don’t know what point the military officer was trying to make.
There’s no shame in being invaded or even occupied – only, perhaps, in failing to repulse.
Actions speak loudly and clearly and unambiguously.
Like symbols.