Below The Beltway

President Bush appeared before the free-market Manhattan Institute and had the audacity to defend both free markets and his anti-free market policies of the past two months:

NEW YORK – President George W. Bush asserted Thursday that the global financial crisis is “not a failure of the free market” and urged world leaders to adopt modest financial reforms that stop short of the tighter regulations Europeans favor.

“Our aim should not be more government. It should be smarter government,” Bush said during a speech in New York, a day before about two dozen world leaders converge on Washington for a weekend summit he is hosting.

Bush called on the leaders to embrace “reasonable” reforms, saying changes won’t work if they shun the free market system or restrict trade.

(…)

The president delivered a vigorous defense of free-market capitalism and easier global trade to frame his approach to the high-level gathering. Bush invited representatives of some of the world’s biggest industrial democracies, emerging nations and international bodies to Washington to start developing a more coordinated world response to the economic woes that have millions of people struggling to keep their jobs, their homes and their hope

(…)

Bush’s argument that “government intervention is not a cure-all” came as some critics think his administration already is overstepping in private markets. The federal dollars being spent or put on the line to rebuild the nation’s financial system could easily run into the trillions. Already the Bush administration has enacted a $700 financial rescue package, backed the purchase of investment bank Bear Stearns, bought stock in leading banks, engineered a government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, guaranteed money market fund holdings and funneled billions to stabilize troubled insurance giant American International Group.

“I’m a market-oriented guy, but not when I’m faced with the prospect of a global meltdown,” Bush said.

To which Leslie Carbone responds:

If you believe that government meddling is necessary to correct “market failures”, you are not a “market-oriented guy”.

If you believe that market solutions must be shunned in favor of government expansion, you are not a “market-oriented guy”.

If you believe that the solution to the problems created by government meddling in the market is more government meddling in the market, you are not a “market-oriented guy”.

It’s bad enough when liberals speak nonsense like this. But when a Republican president tries to paint himself as a “market-oriented guy” while denying the market’s superior flexibility, efficiency, corrective ability, and power to create prosperity, the message that emerges from the muck is clear: Government works better than the market.

However, if Bush’s little bit of Orwellian hypocrisy weren’t enough, he then delivered a line that nearly made me gag when I heard it:

“History has shown that the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, it is too much government involvement in the market,” he said. “It would a terrible mistake to allow a few months of crisis to undermine 60 years of success.”

Isn’t that exactly what you’ve done, Mr. President ?

Video of the speech below the fold.