E.J. Dionne wrote a column last week in which he said that free-market economic theory has collapsed.

You know the talking points: Regulation is the problem and deregulation is the solution. The distribution of income and wealth doesn’t matter. Providing incentives for the investors of capital to “grow the pie” is the only policy that counts. Free trade produces well-distributed economic growth, and any dissent from this orthodoxy is “protectionism.”

The old script is in rewrite. “We are in a worldwide crisis now because of excessive deregulation,” Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an interview.

To which I say, ha. Since when does the Right let anything like real-world experience or empirical evidence get in the way of a good fairy tale?

I’ve been watching today to see who’s commenting on the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac crisis, and it’s mostly been us Leftie bloggers, with a few moderate Right exceptions. The Right is already coming up with creative ways to blame the Left. It’s what they’re good at.