Snake Oil Warning

Now that I think about it, "King Henry" Paulson, expert though he be, is an out-and-out liar.

As he began testifying before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday, according to ThinkProgress.org,

In his opening statement, Paulson struck a defensive tone, blaming Congress for misunderstanding him in thinking he didn’t want robust oversight. He just didn’t want to be “presumptuous,” he explained:

We gave you a simple, three-page legislative outline and I thought it would have been presumptuous for us on that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of Congress, that’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight: I believe we need oversight. We need oversight.

Yeah right. Sure you believe that. But as the blog goes on to note, this is a patent, palpable lie.

Paulson is rewriting history. Far from avoiding “presumption,” Paulson’s plan released last weekend explicitly denied any review at all of his actions:

Section 8. Review: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

It can hardly be the fault of Congress for taking Paulson’s written plan at its word. In fact, one might say it would have been “presumptuous” to assume Paulson actually meant the opposite of what he had written.

He is, after all, a Bush appointee; just what mindgame is being played here in broad daylight? Beware, beware, beware: he speaks with forked tongue.