Free Republic

Opinion Journal Video: I Was a Fannie Mae Executive Former Chief Credit Officer Edward Pinto explains how it all went wrong.

The Bush Admin and Senator McCain warned repeatedly about Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac and what thus became the 2008 financial crisis -- starting in 2002 (and actually even earlier -- in the Clinton and Carter White Houses. Democrats resisted and kept to their party line, extending loans to people who couldn't afford them -- just like you would expect of socialists.

For John McCain and the Republicans, there’s nowhere to go but up. Cut through all of the self-congratulatory talk about how foresighted and responsible they were in voting for the $700 billion mortgage bailout and the truth is that the GOP today is staring into a political abyss. The stock market has fallen, and the remarkable political bounce that Republicans had gained with Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential nomination is gone. Obama has surged into the lead in the polls by depicting McCain as out of touch, aided by the Arizona senator’s erratic, muddled performance on the bailout. First, he temporarily suspended...