Obamamnesia?

While the Obamessiah is busy pointing his finger at John McCain over the current finance mess and outlining his own plan, he seems to have forgotten a few things about what started the whole sub-prime mess:

It appears that D'Oh-bama's main sponsor, the NY Times, has been for years editorializing against the red-lining of mortgages - a method of discrimination against minorities by denying them mortgages at standard rates.

On racism:

Whether the disparity demonstrates rampant discrimination, either in the New York region or elsewhere in the nation, is a subject of heated debate among civil-rights advocates and bankers. But few deny that the 1990 data show a pattern of subtle ethnic and racial preferences that can only be corrected through changes in lending policies.


The disparity between lending costs for black and white homeowners is a serious matter, given the unhappy history of redlining. The federal government should find out once and for all where the racial disparities come from, even if it means forcing the lending lobby to release more kinds of data. Banks and other lenders should voluntarily rein in brokers who direct clients to unjustly expensive loans. Financial institutions should also make the mortgage process more transparent.

Then,...the flip-flop:

Subprime lending, which has grown at a rapid pace in recent years, has made it possible for many New Yorkers with modest incomes and poor credit histories to buy homes. At the same time, those loans have brought some borrowers to the brink of financial ruin or cost them their homes.

Some economists and analysts said examining subprime lending by geography and race could be misleading because of the many variables not represented in the data, including the lack of banking services in some minority communities and historical differences in wealth and income among racial and ethnic groups.

So, gentle readers, it was the NY Times 15+ years of braying for social engineering that stopped the practice of redlining, but created the market for sub-prime mortgages. And, oddly enough, Sarah Palin had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it!