So President Bush took on the enormous task of explaining the financial crisis to Americans in simple, clear terms last night - and singled out Fannie Mae and
“„Remember that this mess started with a private-party securitization party that left the GSEs gasping for air, and market share. Either we’re witnessing political agenda-setting at its worst, or simple ignorance by an administration that has seemingly consistently failed to understand the nature and reach of this crisis. Neither is what should be fueling a desire to provide Treasury with $700 billion to buy assets nobody can price. If you want to know who fueled this mess, look no further than the carnage of independent investment banks like Bear Stearns, Lehman Bros., and others like them. Those still standing (namely, Goldman and Morgan Stanley) are now, conveniently, commercial banks — or have merged with one — and they will benefit enormously from this bailout program. Or look at our own government all the way back to 1992; pushing housing has been a favorite political pet since Bill Clinton first ran for office, and Republicans only furthered the theme since that time; noteably, the current Bush administration’s own push for “the Ownership Society” comes to mind.
“„Until Republicans started trying to claim that Fannie and Freddie caused the financial meltdown as a means of tying Obama to the crisis – a strategy that backfired badly when all of the embarrassing connections to Fannie and Freddie within the McCain campaign were revealed – nobody was saying Fannie and Freddie caused the crisis. Republicans simply worked backwards – they found connections between Democrats and Fannie and Freddie (never thinking to ask about their own connections), then tried to blame the crisis on Fannie and Freddie so as to make people think it was the Democrat’s fault. And it’s still going on despite the fact that the data doesn’t support this story.