In The Middle Of It

Hilzoy unpacks the Rick Davis and Freddie Mac reporting:

...if the NYT and Newsweek are right to say that Davis did almost no work for Freddie Mac, that (to my mind) makes the story worse, not better. What McCain spends his time railing against on the campaign trail is "the lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the administration to ignore the festering problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." Paying someone to do nothing, because of his "close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House", is about as clear an example of what McCain called "the Washington culture of lobbying and influence peddling" as you could ask for.