Jeff Jacoby says it well:
Frank blithely declares: "The private sector got us into this mess."
Well, give the congressman points for gall. Wall Street and private
lenders have plenty to answer for, but
it was Washington and the
political class that derailed this train. [my emphases]
Consider Frank's culpability:
But his fingerprints are all over this fiasco. Time and time again,
Frank insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in good shape. Five
years ago, for example, when the Bush administration proposed much
tighter regulation of the two companies, Frank was adamant that "these two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis." When the White House warned of "systemic risk for our financial system" unless the mortgage giants were curbed, Frank complained that the administration was more concerned about financial safety than about housing.
Read Jacoby's article which sets the record straight going back to the Jimmy Carter era.
Victor Davis Hanson says Barney Frank "should recuse himself from the present discussions given his culpability for the original mess." Hanson finds the proceedings surreal:
Freddie and Fannie were landing pads for former Democratic insiders,
who milked the agencies for millions in bonuses as they covered their
tracks by donations to Congressional candiates and
pseudo-racial-populism of helping minorities buy homes with little
down. Their careers are every bit as nauseating as anything at Enron —
and yet the press strangely does not go after them in the manner we
learned of Ken Lay's deceit. God help us all.