Bait and Switch

Howard Prescott: "Let me get this straight. Brantley is Whitfield?"
Brantley Foster: "That's right. Brantley is Whitfield. Whitfield is Brantley."
Vera Prescott: "And Christy is the bimbo. Well, now that we've all had Mousketeer roll call, I'm just going to call my lawyer."
--The Secret of My Success

In a soon to be published interview with Business Week, President Obama proclaims that he and his administration are 'fierce advocates' of the free market.

My first thought was to Hayek's (1944) observation that a favorite Jedii Mind Trick of totalitarian regimes is to twist the meaning of words--words such as 'free markets.'

Judging by Mr Obama's actions, free markets are apparently those that require large amounts of government regulation and, in some cases such as health care, autos, and banking, government ownership and control of production, distribution, prices, and wages.

It doesn't take a scholar to realize that such is not the definition of free markets in the classical sense.

Reference

Hayek, F. 1944. The road to serfdom. Chicago: The University of Chicago.