Obama’s Fannie Mae ‘Connection’ - Fact Checker

So what evidence does the McCain campaign have for the supposed Obama-Raines connection? It is pretty flimsy, but it is not made up completely out of whole cloth. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers points to three items in the Washington Post in July and August. It turns out that the three items (including an editorial) all rely on the same single conversation, between Raines and a Washington Post business reporter, Anita Huslin, who wrote a profile of the discredited Fannie Mae boss that appeared on July 16. The profile reported that Raines, who retired from Fannie Mae four years ago, had “taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.”

Since this has now become a campaign issue, I asked Huslin to provide the exact circumstances of the quote. She explained that she was chatting with Raines during the photo shoot, and asked “if he was engaged at all with the Democrats’ quest for the White House. He said that he had gotten a couple of calls from the Obama campaign. I asked him about what, and he said ‘oh, general housing, economy issues.’ (’Not mortgage/foreclosure meltdown or Fannie-specific,’ I asked, and he said ‘no.’)”

By Raines’s own account, he took a couple of calls from someone on the Obama campaign, and they had some general discussions about economic issues. I have asked both Raines and the Obama people for more details on these calls and will let you know if I receive a reply.

Hilarious. The McCain campaign relied on reports published in the august Washington Post, one of the self-anointed “papers of record.”

And here we have the same WaPo chastising McCain for taking them at their published word, which was that Raines had

“taken calls from Barack Obama’s presidential campaign seeking his advice on mortgage and housing policy matters.”

How dare McCain use this report to say

The Post says it’s Franklin Raines, for “advice on mortgage and housing policy.”

Actually, McCain has always been too credulous when it comes to the Mainstream Media. In more ways than one. As I hope he is finally learning.

Submit to Stumbled Upon!