MY FANNIE HURTS

I'll be honest, the economy, stock markets, and mortgages are not my forte'. I don't know whether to be scared or not. I don't know whether to be for or against the bailout or not. My "conservative" instincts think of it as corporate welfare, but I'm afraid of what will happen if we don't.

It's infuriating that we find ourselves in this position. How did we get here? Where were John McCain, Barack Obama, President Bush, & the Congress while the mismanagement of these institutions were occuring. How did they let this sneak up on us? Actually, some of these people tried to warn us. Power Line has a great article today how, as recent as 2003, President Bush and the republicans in Congress tried to create a new agency that would oversee and supervise Freddie Mae and Fannie Mac, instead of leaving it with congress. An outside investigator found that under congress' supervision Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors.

Barney Frank said at the time,''These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis,'' said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ''The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."


The eeeeevil FOX NEWS has been the news outlet to give an accurate account of how this crisis came to be


Obama has on his campaign,Jim Johnson, former FANNIE MAE CEO and has sought advice from another FANNIE MAE CEO, Franklin Raines. Franklin Raines was forced out after he was being investigated for cooking the books, which it turns out he did. The Obama campaign has strongly resisted the charge from the McCain camp that Raines is an advisor but they do admit that they sought advice from him on mortgage and housing issues. Now imagine for a moment that Ken Lay, the disgraced former CEO of Enron, was still alive. Now let's imagine that the McCain campaign had sought advice from him on energy issues. Should McCain be criticized for that? Should Obama make an issue of that? ABSOLUTELY! They may have good advice but so what! They're both crooks!

John McCain has suspended his campaign and asked for the first debate to be postponed, so he can go to D.C. to vote on the bailout and try and solve this crisis. Obama has denied the request to postpone the debate and will not suspend his campaign. He feels the televised debate is more important than actually using his power as a senator to lead and fix our country.

McCain will be accused of doing this as a stunt. They may be right. But at least his stunt is an attempt to lead. Obama is more interested in giving the appearance of being a leader and a new kind of politician, than actually being either one.