Sarah arrived, Barack fell, Lehman Brothers fell, Barack rose again

Shrewsbury writes:

Are there no paranoiacs besides Shrewsbury who find the sudden explosion of the credit “crisis,” coincidentally at the same time that McCain was pulling away in the polls, to be exceeding fishy? Usually the Web is rife with mutterings of sinister Conspiracy, but of this I read nothing. Proof of the plotters’ power!

Think about it. For months Obama had been steadily ahead of McCain. Then the Sarah Palin selection and the GOP convention, tremendous excitement about the talented, original, novel, and gutsy Sarah (notwithstanding doubts about her experience, knowledge, and suitability), McCain pulls ahead of Obama for the first time, Obama is visibly discomfited by the arrival on the scene of a star who is more exciting than his own cool self, he loses his mojo, he starts blundering and making stunning gaffes on a daily basis, everyone is saying the Obama balloon has burst. But then, right in the midst of the “mythic fall of Barack,” as I called it, Lehman Bros. suddenly and shockingly goes bankrupt, the finance crisis becomes the number one news in the land, and Obama regains the lead in the polls and keeps it.

Coincidence? The legions of conspiracy theorists out there, who would normally be eating up such a concatenation of events, have been silent. Are conspiracy theorists all on the Democratic side? Are there none on the Republican side?

- end of initial entry -

November 11

Karen writes from England:

The same thing happened in Britain with Gordon Brown. Brown was having a terrible year lurching from crisis to crisis and his ratings in polls had plummeted. He was threatened by several leadership challenges, named the worst PM Britain had ever had and was exposed as a surly, paranoid and petulant character who was impossible to work with. Several of his key ministers resigned. Then suddenly came the Credit Crunch and Brown was instantly rehabilitated as the “Messianic Saviour of the World Economy”. Popping up and down like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland offering bank bailouts, interest rate reductions and assorted benefits, he has gone from zero to hero, prancing about with barely concealed and frankly distasteful glee, while people have their homes repossessed and lose their jobs. This all happened after Lehman’s bankruptcy. Before that he was a useless and inept loser. Newspapers which previously criticised him, now adulate him. The Conservatives, until recently the favourites to win the next election, have been marginalised.

The bankruptcy of Lehman’s was a strange decision which made Hank Paulson look incompetent, but perhaps there were political reasons behind it

Cindy W. writes:

I do think about the possibility that announcement of the fall of Lehman Brothers and the financial banking world in general was timed to help Obama. But more so than that, I am suspicious of the sudden release of a comment of some sort by Osama bin Laden threatening another attack worse than 9/11. An announcement like that the weekend before the 2004 election helped sink Kerry, and I imagine it would have had a similar effect on Obama if it had been released before November 4.

When I watched Obama and his wife show up at the White House and whenever I hear talk about “President-Elect Obama” and see him on TV, I feel like I am in the middle of a nightmare. The schadenfreude that I hear mentioned on radio and indirectly alluded to by people I know at the thought of Obama falling on his face isn’t enough to make his election worthwhile to me. I don’t care how much satisfaction I may get saying “I told you so.” I can’t help wondering if some who voted for him are already starting to feel a little scared when we hear about how fast he is going to move on some things once in office. And yes, I will own a handgun for the first time in my life, sometime before Obama is sworn in.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 11, 2008 01:31 AM | Send