The League

David Brooks on Fannie Mae

by Will · June 17, 2011

Will

Will writes from Washington, D.C. (well, Arlington, Virginia). You can reach him at willblogcorrespondence at gmail dot com.

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Michael Drew says:

June 18, 2011 at 4:05 am

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/david-brooks-discovers-that-it-was-all-fannie-maes-fault?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beat_the_press+%28Beat+the+Press%29&utm_content=TwitterReport
Elias Isquith says:

June 18, 2011 at 9:29 am

Kevin Drum pretty thoroughly took this Op-Ed apart, too:

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/06/fannie-freddie-and-wall-streetReport
- Mike Schilling in reply to Elias Isquith says:
  
  June 19, 2011 at 7:13 pm
  
  The fact that there was lots of money to be made packaging and selling bad mortgages is too simple for most conservatives; they need to find a government villain. the polite sort like David Brooks point at Fannie and Freddie; the read-meaters like Pat Buchanan blame the Community Reinvestment Act, because they knew it was trouble to lend money to those people.Report
Will says:

June 18, 2011 at 1:14 pm

I don’t think that’s the point of Brooks’ column. This seems to be his thesis:

“It has sent the message that we have hit the moment of demosclerosis. Washington is home to a vertiginous tangle of industry associations, activist groups, think tanks and communications shops. These forces have overwhelmed the government that was originally conceived by the founders.

“The final message is that members of the leadership class have done nothing to police themselves. The Wall Street-Industry-Regulator-Lobbyist tangle is even more deeply enmeshed.”Report
Elias Isquith says:

June 19, 2011 at 2:13 am

You very well may be right; I cop to being less than capable of full objectivity in all things Bobo.Report
charles gunther says:

June 20, 2011 at 2:48 pm

read the new york times book review, just like Brooks probably did. He just took it as another opportunity to hack at the dems, as he usually does, never mind the real damage was done under the republican run “watch dogs”. He doesn’t say a word about that. I found this web site following the Hitchens review which was fun. Please don’t email me I’m just a poor high school educated union working bond servant to a class one railroad.Report

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