Newt takes the hot seat on Fannie Mae

*Note: Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich's consult work was for Freddie Mac, sibling of Fannie Mae. Both are government sponsored enterprises.~~Editor/TUSR (Nov. 17)

Republican candidates for office, unlike Democrats, get vetted by media. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich continues to rise in the polls and it comes as no surprise he’s the topic du jour on social media.

Some conservative publications in the camp of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are also chewing on Newt right now. None of this should surprise.

The Georgia congressman has already made history for a number of reasons—getting  a liberal president to cooperate on balancing the budget and playing a big part in installing the first Republican majority in 40 years. Those are but two of Newt's accomplishments.

You might say Newt is getting “re-vetted.”

I’ve already written a column about Newt’s moment on the couch with former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Newt helped derail the bill, HR 2454, Cap and Trade. I covered that bill’s progress very closely and if history judges him correctly, Newt should be given credit for helping stop the expansion of the fleecing of Americans.  His exchange with Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is one for the history books.

It’s ironic—media makes little of President Barack Obama’s job-killing, consumer gouging energy policy based on a single criterion—emissions. Obama told us his policy would cause utility bills to “skyrocket.” Americans elected him anyway without any help from me.

The latest topic for nattering about Newt is his involvement with Fannie Mae. The speaker said he did not serve as a lobbyist; he worked with the company as a consultant.  Media appear to have discovered Gretchen Morgenson’s fine book, Reckless Endangerment, about the financial meltdown. That book places most of the blame for the meltdown on Democrats, but media hasn’t talked about it much until now. There’s a brief passage in the book.

There are two parts to the Fannie Mae matter.

First, Morgenson recounts Gingrich’s attendance at a ceremony in Atlanta in 1995. Fannie Mae, said Morgenson, “would be… creating mortgage products for first-time homebuyers and low and moderate-income consumers…”

Gingrich’s presence was completely acceptable—his home state was Georgia. Affordable housing, at the time, was the one issue almost every member of Congress agreed with. This is the non-issue.

As for Gingrich’s later involvement, he did perform services for Fannie Mae as Republicans were beginning to wake up in response to the risk. His campaign issued a statement describing the speaker’s consulting work as related to cost saving recommendations and other such matters. There is a difference between a consultant and a lobbyist, by the way.

Fannie Mae actually did the right thing in attempting to stave off an economic blowup and had a Democrat been sitting in the Oval Office in 2008, it’s my contention the economy wouldn’t have melted down so completely because media and said Democrats would’ve downplayed it rather than pulling a Chuck Schumer and escalating it (IndyMac). Democrats seized a crisis and turned it into a catastrophe purely for political gain.

Furthermore, if we are to talk about Gingrich’s lobbying Fannie Mae and cite a book where content devoted to him is less than one page, let us look to the Democrats for equal time.

Have you ever heard any media ask Obama about his Fannie Mae associates? The book media cited names many of them on page 304:

• Franklin Raines
• Jamie Gorelick
• William Daley (eye-popper, right?)
• Timothy Geithner (the alleged ‘regulator’)
• Tom Donilon
• Thomas R. Nides

Of those names, Morgenson writes:

 “When the White House publicized both appointments [Donilon and Nides], neither Donilon’s nor Nide’s years at Fannie Mae were mentioned.”

There goes the media double standard again.

Am I happy that the candidate I support did consult work for Fannie? I’m neutral. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in Washington who hasn’t at some point brushed shoulders with Fannie Mae.

So when will WaPo and others start asking all the White House types and other Democrats about their involvement and rewards regarding Fannie Mae?

Media brought the topic up, so let’s have a full discussion. We can start with Obama’s people in the White House and his cabinet. Maybe we could even have a beer summit with Obama's buddy Franklin Raines.

(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Nov. 15, 2011)