Our Ever-Vigilant Congress

How did we get into the mortgage mess in the first place? This Youtube clip, while obviously put together by some partisan Republican, is pretty damning. As the soundbytes from 2004 show, a major problem was the Democrats' refusal to ever admit that there was a problem with the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congresswoman's Maxine Waters' comments are particularly stupid in retrospect:

"Through nearly a dozen hearings where we frankly were trying to fix something that wasn't broke. Mr. Chairman. We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and in particular at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Franklin Raines."

This would be the same Franklin Raines who was found to be cooking the books and helping to create the subprime crisis. Hmmm, I wonder how all of this slipped past Congress's notice?