Topic: WorldNetDaily
A Sept. 17 WorldNetDaily article by Jerome Corsi makes a big deal out of Barack Obama taking money from people connected with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and having former Fannie/Freddie execs as advisers. "In contrast," Corsi writes, "McCain warned of the coming mortgage crisis as he pressed in 2005 for regulatory reform of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac."
Nowhere does Corsi bother to mention that John McCain has similar connections to Fannie and Freddie:
- McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, was president of the Homeownership Alliance, a Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-led advocacy group which has tried to fend off regulation sought by large private banks and mortgage lenders -- the kind of regulation Davis' boss supports now.
- Aquiles Suarez, an economic adviser to McCain, was formerly the director of government and industry relations for Fannie Mae. Top McCain aides Charlie Black, Wayne Berman, John Green and Arther B. Culvahouse Jr. have all lobbied for Fannie and/or Freddie.
- While OpenSecrets.org numbers cited by Corsi showed that McCain received $21,500 in donations from those connected with Fannie and Freddie (compared with $126,000 received by Obama), a separate New York Times count found that McCain has received $169,000 from Fannie/Freddie folks.
Of course, if WND actually followed through on boss Joseph Farah's "none of the above" advice, Corsi would have actually noted all this.
Corsi even slips in a long-debunked attack on Jamie Gorelick, a former Fannie Mae vice chairman:
Gorelick was embroiled in another controversy over an alleged conflict of interest when a 1995 memo she authored as deputy attorney general surfaced while she was a member of the 9/11 commission.
The memo, which became known as the "Gorelick Wall," appeared to establish barriers that barred federal anti-terrorist criminal investigators from accessing various federal records and databases that may have assisted them in their criminal investigations.
In fact, as we've repeatedly noted, that "wall" was first created in 1978, Gorelick's memo actually permitted freer guidelines regarding the exchange of information than what was eventually approved, and John Ashcroft's Justice Department formally reaffirmed those guidelines in August 2001.
