John McCain on the recent takeover of quasi-govermental mortgage guarantors Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac:
Two years ago I warned this Administration and Congress that regulations for our home loan agencies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, needed to be fixed…(Links inserted by me.)
But nothing was done.Senator Obama talks a tough game on the financial markets but the facts tell a different story. He took more money from Fannie and Freddie than any Senator but the Democratic chairman of the committee that regulates them. He put Fannie Mae’s CEO who helped create this disaster in charge of finding his Vice President. Fannie’s former General Counsel is [sic] a senior advisor to his campaign. Whose side do you think he is on? When I pushed legislation to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Senator Obama was silent. He didn’t lift a hand to avert this crisis. While the leaders of Fannie and Freddie were lining the pockets of his campaign, they were sowing the seeds of the financial crisis we see today and enriching themselves with millions of dollars in payments. That’s not change, that’s what’s broken in Washington.
The leaders (CEOs) spoken of are James Johnson and Franklin Raines. Raines, who worked for Presidents Carter and Clinton, served as CEO of Fannie Mae from 1999 to 2004, upon which time he took a scandal-precipitated "early retirement." (I cannot find a reference to a 'former Fannie Mae General Counsel' who advises Obama.)
Why would any candidate for president ask such men--one of whom should be in prison--to advise his campaign, men whose mismanagement of Fannie Mae in the previous decade put the entire taxpaying nation on the hook for the company?
(Thanks to Mark Levin and Byron York)
