Popcorn? Maxine Waters Defends Herself At Public Appearance
Not a Lot of Popcorn, But A Lot of Race Card

I would say "press conference" but I don't know if she's taking questions and I doubt she is.

She's supposed to go on any minute now. She was supposed to start at ten, actually.

I don't know how interesting this will be because it's easy and empty to just list a bunch of conclusions about what you didn't do -- I didn't break any House rules; I didn't improperly intervene with Treasury; I didn't personally benefit. She's already released a short statement making those claims.

What's harder -- which is what the corrupt never do -- is to explain what you did do. But will she do that? I doubt it.

-- Begins by complaining that no trial has been scheduled and may be held after the election. Claims she wants charges all resolved now. Already combative about a schedule.

-- Claims neither she or husband gained any benefit.

-- Says, inadvertently accurately, that this case is about "access." Like her access to lobby the Treasury for her husband's benefit. But that's not how she means it-- she plays the race card, talking up how she represents minorities and brings their issues to the government.

-- Says her call to Hank Paulsen was on behalf of minority bankers who were overleveraged and wanted to know how the conservatorship of Fannie and Freddie would affect them. "The question at this point should not be why I called Paulsen, but why I had to."

-- Claims minority banks could not get a meeting "at the height of the crisis."

-- Claims didn't ask for any favors or any benefit for any particular bank.

-- She has now said "small or minority banks" approximately 400 times.

-- Saying there was nothing improper in a call to Barney Frank. I don't know the details about this. I just know she's lying.

-- Admits that she mentioned her husband's bank to Barney Frank. (I think.) But claims this was still just on behalf of "minority banks."

You know, if you own a frigging bank, I don't think you get to play the race card. Maxine Waters obviously disagrees.

-- Crowing about FinReg nonsense about setting up minority/women's issues staff. She has said "minority" now 820 times.

-- Keeps saying this is about "access." Again, yes, Maxine, it is, but not in the race-card way you mean it.

-- Minority and black now uttered 975 times. Access now up to 225.

-- "Access defines the scope of this case." "This case is about fairness."

-- Claims "exculpatory evidence" suppressed, but had it come out, it would have cleared her.

-- Keeps telling us the case is not about this or that but about "fairness," and now her "constituents," as well as apparently constituents in Texas, Louisiana, and other states, by which she means "minorities," so that counts as a mention, and she's up to 1078.

Fox Cuts Away from self-serving nonsense. Steven Hayes notes that she began the "press conference" claiming she never lobbied on behalf of One United (the minority bank her husband partly owns) but then later discusses... um, lobbying on behalf of One United. But of course it wasn't about One United; it was about "fairness" and "access" for "minority banks."

posted by Ace at 10:15 AM

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