Unka Karl explains the way it wasn’t
Karl Rove and the Right have been making up their facts for so long its no surprise to see their Stalinesque attempt to make their actual legacy into a story book myth where they were but the poor beleaguered heroes,
Like most myths, this is entertaining but fictional. In reality, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were among the principal culprits of the housing crisis, and Mr. Bush wanted to rein them in before things got out of hand.
Rove assumes that everyone has recieved and memorized the Right’s talking points – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and working class Americans were responsible for the housing and related financial crisis.
Because of this, the Bush administration warned in the budget it issued in April 2001 that Fannie and Freddie were too large and overleveraged. Their failure “could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting federally insured entities and economic activity” well beyond housing.
Then with a complianat Republican controlled Congress rushed to do….nothing. Once again Unka Karl is playing spinmiester. There is an alternative, Rove really doesn’t understand what happened. Which makes his assertions that Bush was well meaning, but powerless and bungling, though well intentioned yet another trip down the Conservative rabbit hole. The Rove-Bush circle of doublespeak is part of what has made Jon Stewart so successful. One of the most effective way to deal with such obvious loads of idocy regularly poured forth by the Right’s fact twisting is by ridicule. Karl Rove’s Factually Challenged Housing Revisionism
3. Democrats controlled the Congressional Debate on GSEs: Rove somehow fails to note the GOP controlled Congress from 1994-2006, including the first 6 years of the Bush Presidency. If the President wanted to rein in the GSEs, he needed only make it a major priority, and not a footnote in the 2001 budget.
Karl has backed himself into a corner. Bush was smart, but not up to confronting the mortgage giants while at the same time was the Oval Office Savior that kept us all from being murdered in our beds by terrorists. Bush went for six years without vetoing a bill – not coiicidently, bills that were largely shaped by the White House – so Karl’s case is that Bush always acted with those hellish good intentions, but wasn’t able to push legilation through a subservient Congress. Unless you are an abject kool-air drinker, grasping for any rationalization, Karl is losing his touch – Bush comes out the maladroit and malicious emperor. Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis
Federal Reserve Board data show that:
* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that’s being lambasted by conservative critics.
[ ]…Between 2004 and 2006, when subprime lending was exploding, Fannie and Freddie went from holding a high of 48 percent of the subprime loans that were sold into the secondary market to holding about 24 percent, according to data from Inside Mortgage Finance, a specialty publication. One reason is that Fannie and Freddie were subject to tougher standards than many of the unregulated players in the private sector who weakened lending standards, most of whom have gone bankrupt or are now in deep trouble.
During those same explosive three years, private investment banks — not Fannie and Freddie — dominated the mortgage loans that were packaged and sold into the secondary mortgage market. In 2005 and 2006, the private sector securitized almost two thirds of all U.S. mortgages, supplanting Fannie and Freddie, according to a number of specialty publications that track this data.
In 1999, the year many critics charge that the Clinton administration pressured Fannie and Freddie, the private sector sold into the secondary market just 18 percent of all mortgages.
Depending on which way the wind is blowing, according to the Right, America is a strongly Right leaning country that has rejected liberalism, or like today we have Karl making the case that liberals are all powerful; so powerful in fact that liberals stopped Bush and a Republican Congress from enacting a few banking regulations. Bush Administration Weakened Lending Rules Before Crash. Bush didn’t push for regulation and tried to stop it. This is not to say that a few Republican senators didn’t see the train coming. There were even a few of Bush’s own advisers that sounded the alarm, but it would probably take some of that “enhanced interorgation” to get Karl to admit it.
President-elect Obama. The not so good news first, Obama Is Reported Set to Revise Counterterrorism Efforts
Democrats close to the transition said Mr. Obama’s choice for that job was John O. Brennan, a longtime C.I.A. veteran who was the front-runner to head the spy agency until withdrawing in November amid criticism of his views on interrogation and detention policies. His appointment would not require Senate confirmation.
There are worse then Brennen, but it would be nice if he’d just retire. Teach part-time, write a book, just stay out of the Obama administration. The only thing that would in some way soften the impact of a Brennen appointment is that he’ll report to Gen. James L. Jones – who is on record as being against “enhanced interrogation” and secret renditions. The good news, Obama to Name Lawyer Friend To Regulatory Affairs Position
Obama talked on the campaign trail about the need to revamp the nation’s regulatory structure, especially in housing and finance, areas in which lapses contributed to the current economic crisis.
In his new position, Sunstein will oversee reform of regulations, seeking to find smarter approaches and better results in health, environment and other domestic areas, a transition source said.
Sunstein wrote Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness.
The Long Goodbye 