OP-ED: "Just Say 'No' To Bank Nationalization

The libertarian Republican argues that America’s free market has been prostituted: "As late as last summer, this economy was a virgin to nationalization. One of the most repugnant facets of former President Bush’s malodorous legacy is that he stole America’s chastity on nationalization. Bush used taxpayer dollars to buy 79.9 percent of insurer AIG. He fully absorbed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the state. The GM and Chrysler bailout — killed by the Senate, but autocratically imposed by Bush anyway — is turning these auto companies into de facto federal agencies. Rather than the Car Czar that Bush envisioned, an Obama-appointed Automotive Politburo will steer GM and Chrysler into the sunset. Regarding nationalization, America’s free market has devolved in half a year from unsullied maiden to street-corner whore. This sad truth is one more reason for the American Right to repudiate the Bush-Rove-Paulson borrow-spend-and-bailout model and its architects, as if severing and discarding an infected appendix. That prominent Republicans must be reminded of these fundamentals confirms just how grim things have grown. As the song says: Breathe deep the gathering gloom."