1 To his credit, Mac has said he was against the FM/FM bailout.

But yeah, the housing crisis is the end result of every politician in D.C. pushing the various lending institutions to increase home ownership to unrealistically-high levels, all so they can claim a hand in the increase.  When the pushed policies collapse, suddenly it's the fault of the lenders, not the guys in Washington that leaned on them.

2 And didn't Countrywide as well as various other mortgage lenders use business judgment that is best highly suspect and in some cases possibly criminal. 

Didn't banks and hedge funds buy bundled mortgages without doing their due diligence help lead to the massive write downs and the current credit crisis? 

3 There are many contributing factors to the story (some mentioned above) but when it gets down to it, the major point of failure is that the people writing the mortgages were not the ones ultimately taking on the risk and therefore had no particular incentive to make sure the loans they were writing were sound.  That would be the fault of loan originators like Countrywide.

Significantly magnifying this economic disconnect was the way a bundle of sub-prime mortgages magically got re-classified as better than sub-prime when they were sold.  That would be the fault of the bond rating agencies.

4 Chad, this is politics. Stop trying to use logic. It does not apply. Haven't you learned anything from this moron blog? Heh.

5

How the hell did we get to the point where we have such unbelievably and unforgivably poor candidates?

By letting RINOtastic New Hampshire get so much power in deciding who gets to represent us.

6 The Arizona Republican, who has wrapped up his party's presidential nomination, said he supports the housing bill passed by Congress yesterday to stem foreclosures and aid Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the largest U.S. mortgage-finance companies, even though it may cost taxpayers as much as $25 billion.

So if the Wall Street set are the sole "villains" in Maverick's little world, why the fuck are we bailing them out, and why does McCain support that effort?  Shouldn't they be made to accept the consequences of taking too much risk in the market?

7 Okay, I went back and read the original op-ed. I overstated, he supports the bailout but sounds pissed that it's gotta happen:

Tampabay.com Op-Ed

Has Obama said anything cogent about it?