Why does McCain go so easy on Obama/Democratic Fannie and Freddie liability? This is the question asked by US News and World blogger, James Pethokoukis. He writes:
Here is the big question of the moment that many GOPers are asking: Why is John McCain not tearing into Barack Obama and the Dems on the huge role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Community Reinvestment Act in the financial crisis on Wall Street? . . .Here is what Team McCain is telling me:
1) It is a complicated argument, and McCain is not good at making complicated arguments, not even about earmarks. (Note, additionally, his lack of defense of the war in Iraq during his debate with Obama. Amazing.)
2) There is a racial component to criticism of the Community Reinvestment Act that can make it sound like you are scapegoating minorities for Wall Street’s problems. (This is made clear when you watch the video bellow)
3) The campaign believes McCain’s time is better spent talking about taxes and energy and healthcare. Really.
I suspect because he is McCain and he does not like to make personal attacks especially those with a racial component. Admirable but this is not the time for coyness and I hope that others will make the case for him.
Watch the C-Span 2004 recorded hearings on Fannie and Freddie. You will see, Republicans warn; Democrats refused regulation. Clinton acknowledges that Democrats have been doing so even during his presidency.
Did you note the reference to the over a million dollars connected by Jamie Gorelick, the misteress of disaster who erected the wall between the FBI and CIA partially responsible for 9/11? Actually, she ended up making 26 million as Fannie vice chair 1998-2003.
Her boss, Franklin Raines, an Obama adviser and Fannie CEO 1999-2004 made $90 million and Jim Johnson, Obama adviser and Fannie CEO 1991-1998, made $21 million in 1998 alone (see here.
Barack Obama, though only in the Senate since 2004, took in $126,349 from Fannie & Freddie (second only to Sen. Chris Dodd, $165,400 — whose collections go back to 1989).
WHAT exactly does a “community organizer” do? Barack Obama’s rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here’s a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.
In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.
THE seeds of today’s financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.
Do read the rest and also see Obama Acorn Root causes of Mortgage . Bill Kristol reports that Palin recommended that McCain “take the gloves off.” We can only hope he does and in the meantime do what we can to help by doing what he may not wish to do himself. After all, we have just as much at stake as he does.
