12/26/2008

What Took Them So Long?

The only surprising thing about this New York Times article blaming Bush for the mortgage crisis is the fact that it took them until December 21st to publish the article.  No mention of the Community Reinvestment Act passed under Carter and aggressively applied by the Clinton Administration, the close ties between Democrats in Congress and the leaders of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, or my personal favorite quote by Barney Frank, from a Congressional hearing on the soundness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on September 25, 2003: "I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing."

This isn't to say that the Bush Administration is blameless in this mess, far from it. But this article paints a picture of the Bush Administration ignoring warnings from Democrats such as Rahm Emmanuel and allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to expand unchecked. Yet another rewriting of history from the Gray Lady.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21admin.html

2 comments:

Steven L. Baerson said...

And, don't forget that Barney Frank was dating one of he executives at Freddie Mac. I wonder if that effected his judgement?

Chris Janc said...

The fact is that Bush will long bear the blame for what happened, rightly or wrongly. Only after the political emotions surrounding his presidency and the times we are going through now have passed (one or two generations, will a truly dispassionate analysis be possible. I think his administration will be shown to have been to responsible for problems in some areas but will be exonnerated in others.

However, I am guessing that the NYT will not be around to do the analysis. The paper is well on its way to becoming the liberal version of Drudge.