of brain-dead journalistic coverage of “regulation,” it’s hard to top Martin Peretz:
[T]he fault goes back to Bill Clinton who took up the call of deregulation and ran with it. Like with everything he did he did not look back. No, that’s a bit unfair. It goes back to Ronald Reagan who (not single-handedly but with the boy geniuses at his side) destroyed the airline industry in America.
Rating agencies are a public trust. You should not be able to buy yourself a high rating or haggle for one. Hear, hear: More regulation. No embarrassment in saying so. The deregulators should be embarrassed.
Peretz seems to be immune to embarrassment himself, or else he wouldn’t write such piffle.
UPDATE: A reader makes a good point:
It’s even worse than that. Airline deregulation happened in 1978, under Carter. This is actually one of the few things the Carter administration got right, but if Peretz is going to blame someone, he should at least get his facts straight.
That’s right. Ted Kennedy played a major role in deregulating the airlines, too.