"We forgot" that people had to "afford their house"

Remember this video? I blogged it this past September as an explanation of one factor leading to the housing crisis. President Bush was speaking approvingly (in 2002) re extending credit via Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to persons with poor credit histories:

"...help deserving families with bad credit histories to qualify for home ownership loans...If you put your mind to it... the low income homebuyer can have just as nice a home as anybody else."

Make no mistake about it - the evolution of the credit crisis was a bipartisan effort, endorsed and encouraged by the Democratic Congress. But in this brief one-minute video, President Bush elucidates the fatal concepts quite succinctly.

Today the NYT quotes then-Treasury secretary John Snow as follows:

“The Bush administration took a lot of pride that homeownership had reached historic highs,” Mr. Snow said in an interview. “But what we forgot in the process was that it has to be done in the context of people being able to afford their house. We now realize there was a high cost.”

How can you forget that???? Thank God this criminally incompetent administration is almost out of power.

By the way, Mr. Snow is currently president of Cerberus Capital Management, which owns 80% of Chrysler. He will be bailed out of that problem by taxpayers, thankyouverymuch....