The liberals’ politics of fake compassion bring about, perfectly logically, the cult of fake victimhood. Self-designated victims lay claim to special consideration and special treatment. Often a bizarre rivalry arises between claimants – a “more victimized than thou” competition.

Of course they’d hate to be victims in reality. They’re not in need of help and compensation. They’re after privileges. They milk compassion out of their neighbors. Its a power-drive that is sometimes turned into tyranny: the tyranny of the weak over the strong. It’s also blackmail of a kind: the blackmailing of good people with their own consciences. That it works so well for so many groups in America  – feminists for instance – proves the genuine kindness and generosity of most Americans. Those who give in to the special demands are probably aware they’re being played for suckers by the whimpering “look what you’ve done to me now” complainants, but feel it’s better to risk being exploited than to refuse pity and charity in case it’s really needed.

Fake victimization can bring cash rewards through law suits. And it can bring political advantage, as no doubt Democratic Congressmen Carson, Lewis, and Cleaver were hoping when they claimed recently that they’d been subjected to verbal abuse by protestors against the health-care legislation.

Mark Steyn comments:

On March 20th, something truly extraordinary happened. On the eve of the health care vote, a group of black Democrat Congressmen (eschewing the private tunnels they usually use to cross from their offices to the Capitol) chose to walk en masse through a crowd of protesters, confident that the knuckledragging Tea Party goons they and their media pals have reviled for a year now would respond with racial epithets.

And then, when the crowd didn’t, the black Congressmen made it up anyway. …

But that’s what the Democratic Party has been reduced to – faking hate crimes as pathetically as any lonely, mentally ill college student. Congressmen Carson, Lewis, Cleaver and the rest have turned themselves into the Congressional equivalent of the Duke University stripper. Except that they’re not some penniless loser but a group of important, influential lifetime legislators enjoying all the privileges and perquisites of power, and in all probability acting at the behest of the Democrat leadership.

Isn’t that what societies with functioning media used to call “a story”?

Apparently not. As they did at Duke, the brain-dead press went along with it – and so, predictably enough, did much of the Republican leadership.

 Nancy Pelosi wants a ‘probe’ of  Wall Street, hoping to put all the blame on it for the economic crisis.

The Investor’s Business Daily comments:

The problem is, what "happened on Wall Street" was a direct result of what happened on Capitol Hill. And we’re not the only ones who believe that, by the way.

"Government policies, especially the Community Reinvestment Act, and the affordable housing mission that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were charged with fulfilling, are to blame for the financial crisis," wrote economist Peter Wallison, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, recently.

"Regulators also deserve blame for lowering lending standards that then contributed to riskier homeownership and the housing bubble." Exactly correct.

As such, Pelosi’s proposed … commission will be little more than a fig leaf to cover Congress’ own multitude of sins — letting its members, the true creators of this financial mess, bash business leaders as they pose as populist saviors of Main Street from Wall Street predators.

Why do this now? Pelosi and her Democrat colleagues are feeling the heat from Tea Party demonstrations and growing voter anger over the massive waste entailed in the $4 trillion (and rising) stimulus-bailout bonanza. Again, the Democrats created all this spending. Now, as it proves unpopular, they just walk away from it.

On NPR Thursday, a reporter confronted Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, with the fact that his $300 billion "Hope for Homeowners" program, passed with much fanfare last fall, had so far helped just one homeowner. One.

Frank’s response: It was the fault of the "right." And Bush.

Truth is, Frank’s party has been in charge since 2006. And during that time, Democrats have presided over one of the most disgraceful and least accomplished Congresses in history. This financial mess began on their watch, yet they pretend otherwise.