For All the Marbles

Hot Air's Ed Morrissey blames . . . Barney Frank:

"What many do not recall is that Bush wanted to tighten oversight with a new regulatory board for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government recipients for the express purpose of addressing bad loan practices -- and Democrats blocked it."

He cites news coverage from five years ago: " '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.' . . .

"It was the Bush administration that wanted to rein in the madness in the credit markets, and the Democrats who wanted to extend the Clinton policies that created the crisis we have now."

At the time, the GOP ran Congress and Barney Frank was in the minority. Last year, Frank and others introduced a bill to create a regulatory agency with such broad powers as determining how much capital Fannie and Freddie must maintain as a cushion, forcing them to shed assets if necessary and putting them in receivership if they become severely undercapitalized.

What about the folks around McCain? Jonathan Cohn takes a look in the New Republic:

"John Goodman is a conservative economist who thinks all the fuss over people without health insurance is just hooey. As Goodman explained to a reporter from The Dallas Morning News last week, everybody can get medical care from an emergency room, so why not just stop tallying the uninsured altogether? 'Voila,' Goodman quipped. 'Problem solved.'

"Like many far-right policy experts, Goodman had said such things before. But, unlike many far-right policy experts, Goodman isn't just some random wonk. As the Morning News noted, Goodman had helped craft McCain's health care plan. In other words, he is a McCain adviser.

"Or, at least, he used to be. When Goodman's quote got the attention of reporters, a McCain spokesman issued a terse statement: 'John Goodman is not an adviser to this campaign.' When that position became untenable--it turns out Goodman had identified himself as an adviser not only to the Morning News but also in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, to which the McCain campaign never objected -- the official story changed. Yes, Goodman had offered advice to McCain. But it was on an unpaid, voluntary basis, and McCain had since made clear that Goodman's input was not necessary."

Rich Lowry invokes my "media are mad" column in arguing that journos, having been dumped from the Straight Talk Express, are rooting for McCain to lose:

"With the end of the running bull sessions, a trial separation began with the press that became a divorce that became a feud. The enduring scandal of the McCain campaign is that it wants to win. The press had hoped for a harmless, nostalgic loser like Bob Dole in 1996. In a column excoriating Republicans for historically launching successful attacks against Democratic presidential candidates in August, Time columnist Joe Klein excepted Bob Dole -- not mentioning that Dole had been eviscerated by Clinton negative ads before August ever arrived.

"The press turned on McCain with a vengeance as soon as he mocked Barack Obama as a celebrity. Its mood grew still more foul when the McCain campaign took offense at Obama's 'lipstick on a pig' jab . . .

"The lipstick controversy indeed represented a silly bit of grievance-mongering. But had the Obama camp's tendentious interpretation of Bill Clinton's 'fairy tale' put-down as a racial slight generated similar push-back from the media? Had Obama's ridiculous depiction of Geraldine Ferraro as a quasi-racist? Had Obama's repeated contention -- with no evidence -- that Republicans were attacking him for looking different?"

All right, we can't leave without checking on McCain's visionary leadership getting credit for the BlackBerry-- made, in case you forgot, by a Canadian company.