1) “If one had paid attention, they’d have seen this crisis coming on like a freight train years ago.

….and it wasn’t because of Obama.”

I’m assuming your talking about the same crisis Lott is talking about, the housing bubble, its inflation and deflation — the crisis a lot of people did indeed see coming. If that’s what you’re talking about, then the record is pretty clearly one of profligacy, coercion, and racial pandering by Congressional Donks, the Carter and Clinton administrations, and, in a supporting role (he never really does anything on his own), Barack “Go Along Get Along” Obama. Details available upon request.

2) “To ignore the massive deregulation pushed by the Reaganites, the cost of two wars, the explosive spending, and the largest borrowing in 232 years as being responsible for the current crisis is to be intellectually dishonest.”

You’ll have to be little clearer. How did two wars and a lot of deficit spending force banks to make the comedy loans now defaulting so predictably? And as for deregulation, the all-purpose boogie on the talking-point left, sure, there’s some optimal level of regulation. GSE’s like Fannie and Freddie, for instance, demand constant oversight and restraint (see “Congressional Donks” for the failure to oversee and restrain), but we have to be careful with the private sector. Regulations that force banks to make bad loans seem sub-optimal, don’t you think? Even Nancy Pelosi wants to revisit Sarbanes-Oxley, the regulatory product of the “California utilities” affair, since the burden on start-ups is a job-killer. (Less burdensome for the big guys, of course. Lots of regulation is just wealth transfer in disguise, and not always in the direction of the designated victim groups.) And don’t forget that regulation, in general, is fraught with unintended consequences. Here’s a note on what will shortly be a booming academic field, “regulatory arbitrage,” in this case the story of how FDIC requirements actually *created* a demand for certain exotic securities, many of them toxic.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/10/some_useful_not.html

So, moving on, the WSJ article that cued Lott’s is all about the Obama stock market and how savers and investors are dismayed by the prospect of new taxes on saving and investing. My question for you is, how does Obama propose to do all the stuff he’s talked about without the tax increases that will aggravate the recession and without the deficit spending that leftists so deplore of late? How’s he going to fund the “bold new opportunity agenda,” not to mention healing the planet and conquering sin in general?

There’s life-enhancing irony here. Bad D policies blew up and, with a shove from the media, got their boy elected. Now the new D prez has to deal with the blow-up.

Here is an interesting blog!
http://dancingfromgenesis.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/who-to-blame-for-mortgage-fraud-crisis-bailout-is-democrats-community-reinvestment-act-affirmative-action-predatory-lending-what-caused-subprime-lending-disaster-was-fault-of-democrat-congress-prote/

To ignore the massive deregulation pushed by the Reaganites, the cost of two wars, the explosive spending, and the largest borrowing in 232 years as being responsible for the current crisis is to be intellectually dishonest.

An unregulated free market will not work.

Regulation exists to save capitalism from itself. Every deregulated market in recent history has resulted in an economic mess: California utilities, oil speculation, banking, accounting/auditing, credit default swaps…. all of them resulted in scandal and fraud.

If one had paid attention, they’d have seen this crisis coming on like a freight train years ago.

….and it wasn’t because of Obama.

Not the out of control spending? Not deregulating the banking industry? Not deregulating credit swaps? Not cutting taxes but not spending? Not borrowing more money than every previous administration combined?

It’s all the “Democrats” fault?

In the words of the Mythbusters, sounds like the WSJ’s mantra is “I reject reality and substitute my own!”