The Boston Globe is vigorously campaigning to re-elect Barney Frank. Today the paper leaps to exhonerate him from any culpability in the ultimate meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The issue that day in 2003 was whether mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were fiscally strong. Frank declared with his trademark confidence that they were, accusing critics and regulators of exaggerating threats to Fannie’s and Freddie’s financial integrity. And, the Massachusetts Democrat maintained, “even if there were problems, the federal government doesn’t bail them out.’’
Now, it’s clear he was wrong on both points — and that his words have become a political liability as he fights a determined challenger to win a 16th term representing the Fourth Congressional District. Fannie and Freddie collapsed in 2008, forcing the federal government to buy $150 billion worth of stock in the enterprises and $1.36 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities.
[...]
Republican Sean Bielat, who is trying to unseat Frank, has been hammering away at him with a website titled “Retire Barney’’ that features clips of Frank at the 2003 hearing and elsewhere. During debates this week, he called Frank “one of the leaders of the economic disaster’’ because he supported Fannie and Freddie when they were taking the risks that led to their collapse.
But Frank said that putting blame entirely on him is unfair — and several independent analysts agree. They said Republicans also failed to take warning signs seriously enough to avert disaster, despite controlling the White House and both houses of Congress between 2003 and 2007, a crucial period leading up to the Fannie and Freddie failures.
“Selling Fannie and Freddie as a purely partisan issue, it doesn’t really work,’’ said Jonathan Koppell, director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. “Both parties have plenty of responsibility.’’
Another analyst, University of Maryland economics professor Peter Morici, put it more succinctly. “This is a bipartisan mess,’’ he said.
In what way was it a bipartisan mess, one might ask. The Globe diligently repeats the Barney Frank defense. Republicans were in charge. They could have done whatever they wanted. Or could they?
Top Bush strategist Karl Rove still blames Frank for its failure, saying Frank and other Democrats portrayed a vote to regulate Fannie and Freddie as “anti-black, anti-brown, anti-poor, anti-homeowner’’ because of the enterprises’ affordable housing mission.
“They were brutal,’’ Rove said in a recent interview. “And so Republicans shied away from confronting it.’’
Frank dismissed those assertions, saying the splintering of GOP support was not his fault.
“They couldn’t get their act together,’’ he said.
So let's see if I have this straight. When Republicans as the minority party block legislation they are the Party of NO. When Democrats as the minority party block legislation, it's because Republicans can't get their act together. At least that's how the Boston Globe sees it.
