Card on the Media

Orson Scott Card is a novelist - Ender's Game, etc. - and (apparently) columnist. His sci-fi books focus on thorny ethical dilemmas, and characters act out their own salvation or destruction in the mode of Greek tragedy.

Card is angry now, principally at the media, and secondarily at his own party. Drudge links to the piece. Here are some excerpts.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America...

[The credit crisis] was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor...

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

If you had any personal honor...

...Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences....

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

Congratulations to Card for taking on his own party and profession. And kudos to Bill O'Reilly for taking Barney Frank to task. Harshly.