Question the timing: Coordination between WH, Dems and SEC on Goldman Sachs?

I’m not much for conspiracy theories, but FamousDC makes a pretty good case (hat tip) for WH/Dem/SEC coordination via a lengthy timeline of events for a suspiciously timely announcement on the suit against Goldman Sachs by the SEC (and a weak one at that) – just as Democrats are kicking their version of “financial reform” into high gear.

In fact, a lot of people are questioning the timing of the accusations against Goldman Sachs. It does look quite suspicious, doesn’t it?

At the same time, there are also those who are reminding people that the Democrat party – the ones trying to act like paragons of virtue on the issue of financial reform right now – was the same party who stymied efforts by the Bush administration and other Republicans for six of Bush’s 8 years in office, like AEI senior fellow Peter Wallison:

The story is all too familiar. Politicians in positions of authority today had an opportunity to prevent this fiasco but did nothing. Nowβ€”in the name of the taxpayersβ€”they want more power, but they have never been called to account for their earlier failings.

One chapter in this story took place in July 2005, when the Senate Banking Committee, then controlled by the Republicans, adopted tough regulatory legislation for the GSEs on a party-line voteβ€”all Republicans in favor, all Democrats opposed. The bill would have established a new regulator for Fannie and Freddie and given it authority to ensure that they maintained adequate capital, properly managed their interest rate risk, had adequate liquidity and reserves, and controlled their asset and investment portfolio growth.

These authorities were necessary to control the GSEs’ risk-taking, but opposition by Fannie and Freddieβ€”then the most politically powerful firms in the countryβ€”had consistently prevented reform.

The date of the Senate Banking Committee’s action is important. It was in 2005 that the GSEsβ€”which had been acquiring increasing numbers of subprime and Alt-A loans for many years in order to meet their HUD-imposed affordable housing requirementsβ€”accelerated the purchases that led to their 2008 insolvency. If legislation along the lines of the Senate committee’s bill had been enacted in that year, many if not all the losses that Fannie and Freddie have suffered, and will suffer in the future, might have been avoided.

Why was there no action in the full Senate? As most Americans know today, it takes 60 votes to cut off debate in the Senate, and the Republicans had only 55. To close debate and proceed to the enactment of the committee-passed bill, the Republicans needed five Democrats to vote with them. But in a 45 member Democratic caucus that included Barack Obama and the current Senate Banking Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.), these votes could not be found.

Recently, President Obama has taken to accusing others of representing “special interests.” In an April radio address he stated that his financial regulatory proposals were struggling in the Senate because “the financial industry and its powerful lobby have opposed modest safeguards against the kinds of reckless risks and bad practices that led to this very crisis.”

He should know. As a senator, he was the third largest recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, behind only Sens. Chris Dodd and John Kerry.

Yep.

One of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the American people in history is the common misconception – fostered by lying Democrats and their handholders in the MSM – that it was Republicans who were the most responsible for not only enabling and aiding in the financial crisis of 2006-2009 but for also being “against” any efforts to halt such things from happening in advance. It’s simply not true. Out-going Senator Chris Dodd, a beneficiary of his and his party’s “just say no” attitude towards GOP financial reform efforts, is out front and center once again pretending to be the hero of the “little guy” with his “bipartisan” financial reform bill which will solve nothing. The GOP must stand firm against this phony “reform” effort and remind people that the last people you want to “fix” these problems are the very ones who got us into this mess in the first place.

And BTW, will Barack Obama give up his nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from the now-under-the-bus Goldman Sachs and donate it to charity? They were, after all, his second highest 2008 campaign contributors …

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