Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., is set to head the House Financial Services Committee. It’s a big move deserving of scrutiny, especially considering the congresswoman’s family continues to benefit directly from her proximity to power.
But if you were hoping to learn more about the incoming chairwoman’s history of dubious ethics and backroom dealings, you would do well to avoid the Washington Post’s coverage this week of her new role. Waters owes the paper a gift basket for the way in which it carefully avoided any mention of her spotty background.
“Maxine Waters takes the reins of a powerful House committee. Wall Street is nervous,” reads the Post’s headline.
It’s her dream headline. It’s also totally unsupported by the facts. The closest the story comes to demonstrating that the financial sector is indeed “nervous” about Waters’ looming chairmanship is when it quotes a Washington-based policy analyst who says, “I don’t want to be the next financial institution to mess up. We will have big bank CEOs raising their right hand a lot more.” The Post’s attempt to characterize Waters as a get-tough regulator also hinges, amazingly, on praise by former Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is currently a director at a bank.
Frank’s praise:
Curiously absent from the report is any mention of the fact that Frank rather infamously steered $12 million in federal bailout funds to a now-defunct Boston bank where Waters held stock and her husband was a board member. It’s just a total mystery that this information failed to make it into the story.
The rest of the Post article is pure speculation. See if you can spot the theme in the following passages [emphases added]:
From this conjecture and the above two quotes, the Post felt comfortable enough to report that Wall Street is “nervous” about Waters. It’s a nice story. It certainly puts the California congresswoman in a flattering, populist light. If only there were some reason to suspect that any of it was true.
Missing from the Post’s collection of glossy quotes and neat-o factoids (“Waters … is the first African American and first woman to lead the House Financial Services Committee”; “Her perspective on [homelessness and housing affordability] was formed, in part, by the global financial crisis when she heard from hundreds of constituents struggling to save their homes from foreclosure …”) is relevant historical context suggesting she might not be the no-nonsense, ethical regulator the paper suggests she is.
One suspects the Post’s audience would have appreciated a reminder that Waters was charged in 2010 with violations of the House’s ethics rules after it was discovered that she was involved in ensuring that $12 million in federal bailout funds were directed to a bank in which she and her husband held professional and financial interests. The Post doesn’t mention any of this. It doesn’t even mention Frank’s involvement in the incident. But the story does include Frank generously promising that Waters will be so tough and thorough against Wall Street.
What the Post published this week isn’t journalism. It’s public relations. Democracy dies in darkness indeed.
