Marathon Pundit: Obama's mortgage money machine

Barack Obama has been waving his righteous finger at John McCain and the Republican Party about the current economic mess--which can be traced to overzealous housing lenders.

Here's the transcript from John Gibson's report this afternoon on the Fox News Channel:

HEATHER NAUERT: Barack Obama attacking John McCain once again on the economy and the market turmoil today. Our John Gibson has new information on the Democratic presidential nominee and the mortgage mess for us now. What have you got John?

JOHN GIBSON: Alright Heather. Lehman Brothers' collapse is traced back to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two big mortgage banks that got a federal bailout a few weeks ago. Freddie and Fannie used huge lobbying budgets and political contributions to keep regulators off their backs. A group called the Center for Responsive Politics keeps track of which politicians get Fannie and Freddie political contributions. The top three U.S. Senators getting big Fannie and Freddie political bucks were Democrats and number two is Senator Barack Obama. Now, remember, he has only been in the Senate four years but still managed to grab the number two spot ahead of John Kerry, decades in the senate, and Chris Dodd who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Fannie and Freddie have been creations of the Congressional Democrats and the Clinton White House, designed to make mortgages available to more people, and as it turned out, some people who couldn't afford them. Fannie and Freddie have also been places for big Washington democrats to go to work in the semi-private sector and pocket millions. The Clinton administration's White House budget director Franklin Raines ran Fannie and collected 50 million dollars. Jamie Gurilli, Clinton Justice Apartment Official, worked for Fannie and took home 26 million dollars. Big Democrat Jim Johnson, recently on Obama's VP search committee has hauled in millions from his Fannie Mae C.E.O. job. Now remember, Obama's ads and stump speeches attack McCain and Republican policies for the current financial turmoil. It is demonstrably not Republican policy and worse, it appears the man attacking McCain, Senator Obama, was at the head of the line when the piggy's lined up at the Fannie and Freddie trough for campaign bucks. Senator Barack Obama, number two on the Fannie/Freddie list of favored politicians after just four short years in the senate. Next time you see that ad, you might notice he fails to mention that part of the Fannie and Freddie problem. Heather.

NAUERT: Wow, that's quite a report, begs the question -- where is John McCain on this?

GIBSON: John McCain is a measly $20,000 after over 20 years so he really doesn't even come close in the political contribution department.

NAUERT: Interesting. All right. John Gibson, great to see you, as always, excellent thank you.

Obama has other skeletons in his mortgage closet. He was only able to afford his mansion on Chicago's South Side because his first political sponsor, Antoin "Tony" Rezko, arranged for his wife to buy a strip of land adjacent to the home. Rezko is sitting in jail now, and will receive his prison sentence next month--he was found guilty of 16 fraud and corruption charges in June.

In purchasing the mansion, Obama got a sweetheart mortgage deal from Northern Trust, a big Chicago bank. In explaining that away, an Obama spokesman mentioned that there was a competing lender. Who was that lender? They won't say.

Audacity!

Related posts:

Fannie Mae news: Obama campaign getting acidic advice from ex-CEO Raines

Obama's "sweetheart" mortgage: Was the competing lender Broadway Bank?

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