GSEgoguery And A Legitimate Question

Someone's out to get Rick Davis, and it ain't the New York Times. The Times was but one of three news entities who reported the same story this morning: Freddie Mac paid $15,000 a month to Davis Manafort until August of this year.

In a late-night missive written in Schmidt Gothic Bold, the McCain campaign denied what the stories did not allege -- namely, that Davis personally profited from Freddie Mac and therefore had a direct financial conflict of interest in helping McCain develop policy.

Davis retains a stake in his firm, but it's not clear whether he'll benefit financially. Though he certainly has an ego interest in keeping the firm alive, the story's not about profit. It's about influence buying.  Newsweek goes the furthest, here: did Freddie Mac pay the firm because Davis was associated with John McCain and, at the time the payments began, McCain was the Republican frontrunner?  Did Davis somehow sanction this arrangement?  This is a legitimate question.

Davis's denial leaves open questions. Bashing the New York Times is not an answer.

Now -- another truth is that few Democrats and few Republicans expressed concern about Fannie and Freddie until alleged improprieties became a matter of public record. Ironically, I remember having a conversation with an associate of Karl Rove's, who, in 2002, told me that Rove was concerned about the GSEs becoming overleveraged. (!)   In any event, associates of John McCain and Barack Obama profited from the GSEs and encouraged their growth, as did almost anyone with an interest in increasing homeownership in the country.

But the story's not about GSEs per se -- it's about whether Freddie put Davis's firm on retainer because Davis was allied with McCain.