Discriminations

In my last post I called the Associated Press “delusional” for writing, in what was presented as news “analysis,” that Sarah Palin’s criticism of Obama for palling around with unrepentant former terrorists, both white, was racist.

No, that was not in a Saturday Night Live skit; it was in what was to all intents and purposes a real Associated Press article. Now, showing that Democratic leaders refuse to be beaten in the race to say the most inane things, Fannie/Freddie protector, Chairman Barney Frank, outdoes even the AP by claiming that Republican criticism of his and other Democrat’s blocking Republican-sponsored measures to rein in Fannie and Freddie over the years “is a veiled attack on the poor that's racially motivated.”

The Massachusetts Democrat, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said the GOP is appealing to its base by blaming the country’s mortgage foreclosure problem on efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act.

He said that blame is misplaced, because those loans are issued by regulated institutions, while far more foreclosures were triggered by high-cost loans made by unregulated entities.

Excuse me, but wasn’t the whole point of the Community Reinvestment Act to force those “regulated institutions” to extend loans to applicants who, in the absence of the CRA, they would have regarded (correctly) as financially unqualified? Wasn’t it Fannie and Freddie, supported and defended by Barney and friends, who enabled those “regulated entities” (and maybe even some of the unregulated ones?) to continue building this house of cards?

But don’t worry. All these mistakes will be fixed once we have a liberal Democratic president, a liberal House, and a Liberal Senate.